Pradera, a retail property fund and asset manager, has announced the first closing of the Pradera European Retail Parks SCSp, a Luxembourg fund. In a €900 million transaction agreed with IKEA Centres, the Fund has signed a contract to acquire 25 prime retail parks next to IKEA stores in eight European countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic.
The portfolio of retail parks situated next to IKEA stores comprises around 500 units with a GLA of around 538,000 sqm. Completion on 17 assets located in Germany, France and Poland is expected on 4 April 2017, with a further eight retail parks in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Switzerland due to complete on 31 August.
Four Polish parks will change hands as well as one in the Czech Republic, with a combined area of 175,000 sqm. Ikea was represented by Cushman & Wakefield and Pradera by JLL for this transaction.
The new Fund comes at the start of a year in which Pradera looks to expand further, having launched a successful joint venture with Macquarie in Asia last year. Pradera Retail Asia already has over €900 million of assets under management in China.
Pradera was able to complete the deal with equity investment from LJ Partnership, the private wealth partnership, which took a significant minority stake in the business in May 2016.
