Allan Saunderson is managing editor of Property Finance Europe and a contributor to GlobeSt.com.

THE NETHERLANDS-Netherlands-based Multi Corp. is well on course to transform from a merchant to an investing developer of European shopping centers, retaining stakes in malls it builds such as the newly-opened Centrum Galerie in east Germany's Dresden.

CEO Glenn Aaronson, a native of San Francisco, says that Multi--de-listed and taken private three years ago wıth the help of the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds--is making considerable strides. "Many original centers were pre-sold to the likes of German open-ended funds, insurance companies, private investors," he tells PIE. "But since that point we've moved away from being a merchant developer to being an investing developer. Now, as much as 50% to 60% of that which goes into the pipeline is for our own box. That will come to fruition in another two year or three years, and we will then have a reasonably substantial portfolio of our own."

Grounds for the transition are Multi's forecasts of a structural change in the retail mall segment. "In the end, being simply a merchant developer is a business that, though sustainable in the past, may not be the way of the future," says Aaronson. Part of the prognosis is that retail cannot keep expanding, and that a limited pool of potential shopping center tenants will--without redevelopment and upgrade of standing malls--want to shift to the next new premises constructed. Like most other mall developers and owners, Multi works on a fixed-percentage rent plus a turnover component. In Dresden, Centrum Galerie opened 62,000 square meters in mid-September. Even before opening, Centrum Galerie, Dresden was certified "Excellent" in the BREEAM sustainability audit; becoming the only mall in continental Europe to have received the highest rating by the assessor selected by the International Council of Shopping Centres.