Intu said the opportunity to acquire Parque Principado‚ a top-10 centre in Spain‚ on attractive and earnings-accretive terms firmly established its presence on the ground in a country where it sees considerable growth opportunities in the regional shopping centre industry. Intu has a site under option in Andalucia for 80‚000 square metres of retail space with additional leisure components.
As previously announced‚ it said‚ it had entered into arrangements with Eurofund‚ a local partner with a track record of successful retail development‚ for pre-development activity on this site and at two major sites under option‚ in Valencia and Vigo.
“We are aiming to attract additional third-party capital to assist with funding Intu’s Spanish activities without diverting significant financial resources from Intu’s organic development pipeline in the UK‚“ it said.
“In this context‚ we are actively investigating the creation of a special purpose investment vehicle for our Spanish activities‚ such as a Spanish real estate investment trust (Reit) following a number of recent regulatory improvements to this product‚” it said.
Intu said the shopping centre market in Spain offered opportunities to create a quality business of scale and had the potential to generate superior total returns over the long term.
