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Two more Bulgarian shopping malls to be sold

Fri, Oct 15 2010 08:50 CET 4557 Views
Two more Bulgarian shopping malls to be sold

Photo: Georgi Kozhouharov

The sale of another two shopping malls will be finalised by the end of 2010 or in early 2011 at the latest, Assen Lisev, CEO of real estate consultancy MBL/CBRE, which manages City Center Sofia, told Dnevnik.

The two malls sold this year, or rather projects under construction, were Mall Rousse and Mall Stara Zagora, which cinema chain Cinema City offloaded to peer Israel Theaters for about 85 million euro.

Lisev added that City Center Sofia, which since 2006 has changed hands three three times, was not among them, but declined to give more details.

Last week it became clear that Austrian Raiffeisen Zentralbank wants to buy Mall Varna, owned by Miller Developments. Then Mall Varna’s marketing manager Desislava Kovacheva said all the malls in the country were for sale, while a major real estate consultancy confirmed it but added that good offers were scarce. The price of retail space has dropped as rents have fallen, thus any sale will be at a loss for the owner, market observers said.

Another suspect is Mall of Sofia as GE Real Estate is known to be selling its stake in it, even in the summer it came close to finalising a deal, but disagreements with its co-owner, Irish fund Quinlan Private, led to nothing, sector sources told Dnevnik. The partners bought the mall in 2006 for 90 million euro from Israeli companies Ocif and Aviv.

The market also foresees the sale of either Pfohe Mall or Grand Mall Varna, both in the city of Varna. Pfohe Mall, which opened in December 2007, is 40 per cent owned by Karl Heinz Pfohe and 30 per cent by Philip Michael Pfohe. Grand Mall Varna, owned by Orchid Development Group of Israeli entrepreneurs Guy Meyohas and Ofer Miretzky, cut the ribbon in May. Both the companies denied plans to be selling the malls.

Currently, Bulgaria has 15 malls and 16 under construction.

In terms of newly-developed retail space in the first half of 2010, about 200 000 sq m, Bulgaria ranked first in the European Union and second in Europe after Russia, according to a report of consultancy Cushman & Wakefield. Year-to date four shopping centres have opened door – two in Sofia and one each in Plovdiv and Varna.

Source: Dnevnik.bg

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