Just three of the company's 39 centers are currently outside of the US – Madrid (Spain) Xanadu, in Spain; Vaughn Mills, near Toronto; and St. Enoch Centre, in Glasgow, Scotland. The company plans to build a center in Rome, is looking at other sites in Western Europe and will start looking at other international regions where it can develop, Dausch said. Mills has been in other countries since it opened Madrid Xandau in the spring of 2003.
New Hyde Park, NY-based Kimco Realty Corp. owns 65 centers in Canada and six in Mexico. A lot has changed north of the border since the strip-center owner entered the country in 2001, when the firm was just one of two companies bidding on a property, said David Henry, Kimco's vice chairman and chief investment officer.
"Now we're one of 13 or 14 bidders," he said. "It's changed dramatically for us." Henry also predicted that "Mexico is going to go the same way." Kimco entered that country in 2002. When asked why the company decided to expand outside of the United States, Henry said: "It made all of the sense in the world for Kimco to team up with its big-box tenants as they expanded around the world."
He also acknowledged that the acquisition climate domestically, in recent years, has become tougher as cap rates have gone dropped and the number of suitors for properties has increased. Kimco would like to expand into other countries and one day become an "international company," Henry said, but he did not specify any other nations that the REIT is targeting for expansion.
The Sydney, Australia-based Westfield Group is no stranger to the ownership of international centers. It acquired its first US center in 1977, and since then has also amassed portfolios in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. When Westfield expands to a new country, it first buys one property, and then sends senior management to that area to learn the market before making portfolio acquisitions, said Peter Lowy, the company's managing director. "In order to be successful in any market, you have to learn that market," he said. "It is important to understand local characteristics."
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