El Corte Inglés closes stores in Spain for the first time in its history.

South African REIT, VUKILE, has purchased two El Corte Inglés assets through its subsidiary Castellana Properties SOCIMI.

The Spanish REIT vehicle, Castellana Properties, has paid €36.8 million to increase its ownership stake in two centres, Bahía Sur (Cádiz) and Los Arcos (Sevilla). This follows their acquisition last year of the majority interest in these two centres.

This acquisition has allowed Castellana to control an additional 12,000m² of GLA in the city of Cadiz and an extra ​​11,000m² in the east of Seville. El Corte Inglés plans to relocate its staff of 378 workers in both centers and has ensured it «will try to satisfy the professional desires of each employee proposing tasks appropriate to their professional profiles.»

The El Corte Inglés department store has obtained c. €10 million in capital gains from this sale – which is outside the scope of the process which is being carried out with the advice of PwC.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Castellana Properties, Alfonso Brunet, has explained that the plans of the Spanish REIT are to «add value» to the centres and ensure that their «shopping centers are not a mere place to shop»

Castellana Properties currently owns 17 retail assets with a GLA of ​​317,106 m² following the recent addition of the Granaita Retail Park which traded at approximately €5.5 million.