Unibail To Buy Simon's European Portfolio

PARIS-French-Dutch retail mall giant Unibail-Rodamco is in negotiation with US REIT Simon Property to purchase assets from the latter’s shopping center portfolio in Europe, comprising five properties in France and one in Poland, according to the internet site Wansquare.

Neither companies have yet confirmed the talks but the 102,000-square-meter. Arkadia mall in Warsaw alone is worth €550 million so that the total transaction is worth well over €1 billion in total. Simon in Europe entered a 50/50 joint venture with the Canadia investor Ivanhoe Cambridge to acquired the group BEG which owns seven malls in Europe, of which five in France – two assets at Torcy in southwestern France totalling around 95,000 square meters, at Bagnolet, at Villabé in the south of Paris, and in the town of Wasquehal.

Wansquare said the sale to Unibail-Rodamco, which with a portfolio of over 450 malls is by far the largest retail owner and developer in Europe, is probably motivated by Simon Property’s desire to raise liquidity for an eventual takeover of one of its main US competitors General Growth Properties. The latter owns more than 200 malls valued last spring at just under $30 billion.