The Real Estate Fund from the CZECH FUND family, which belongs among the fastest growing funds in the Czech Republic, acquired the Olomouc CITY Shopping Centre. With this acquisition the DRFG manages the first primarily leisure-oriented property in its portfolio.
The CZECH REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT FUND (CREIF) has thus expanded its portfolio with the Olomouc CITY Shopping Centre, which offers 20,000 square meters of retail space with annual attendance of approximately 3 million people. The Centre is managed by DRFG Real Estate Facility Management, a member of the DRFG Investment Group. After this acquisition the total rentable area of the DRFG-managed commercial properties is almost 200,000 square meters.
Currently 96% of Olomouc CITY Shopping Centre is occupied. The average length of lease contracts is more than 3 years; and the tenants include a wide range of shops and restaurants as well as a range of leisure services. The Centre includes, for instance, the CineStar multiplex cinema, children's corner and Amazonie Game Zone, which regularly organises entertainment programs for families with children.
“We consider the primarily entertainment-oriented Centre to be a suitable addition to our portfolio, which consists predominantly of retail-oriented properties. Its strengths dwells in quality tenants and sustainable rent. Therefore, this project has a favourable risk-revenue ratio, and clearly strengthens the fund's stability, which confirms the fund's suitability also for conservative investors, ” says Patrik Tuza, director of the DRFG Real Estate Division, and adds that in the future there is a plan to continue to increase the attractiveness of the Centre.
Olomouc CITY offers mainly shops with fashion, cosmetics, sports goods and jewellery. The tenants are, for example, Sportisimo, New Yorker, CCC, Deichmann, Kik, Pepco and Datart electronics store. The Centre is also connected with Globus retail chain. “The property has a large catchment area and very good transport accessibility, which also brings visitors outside the Olomouc city centre,” adds Tuza.
The building was acquired from Mint Investments, a leader in private equity management as well as real estate and alternative energy investment in Central Europe. “Olomouc City was one of the most interesting investment experiences both for me and for our company. After the acquisition at the largest involuntary auction of that time, we managed, as one of the few in the Czech Republic, to completely transform the regional shopping centre into a stabilized Centre with a strong and functional mix of shops and services in our catchment area, with a substantial share of leisure activities for the entire families. And now we have successfully completed this phase by selling it to one of the largest domestic investors specialized in shopping centres and retail,” says Lukáš Schirl, Mint Investments property manager. Mint Investments continues with the Property Management of the Centre.
The consultancy services during this transaction were provided by JK Advisory and CBRE, on the buyer‘s side the tax and accounting consultancy was provided by TPA - legal and law consultancy by Wilsons law office, and technical consultancy was provided by Sentient. Raiffeisenbank provided funds for this transaction. The price of the transaction will not be publicly available.
