Belgium's Mitiska REIM makes German retail park debut

Begium's Mitiska REIM, one of the leading investors in retail parks throughout Europe, made its entrance onto the German market this month with two acquisitions in quick succession.

The first deal was buying a 10,900 sqm retail centre with 273 parking spaces in the downtown area of Mönchengladbach in a joint venture with the Luxembourg Investment Group (LIG). The seller was a Spezialfonds from Danish fund manager Kristensen Properties.

The retail park contains has 12 separate tenants, including retail grocers Rewe and Penny. Co-investor Luxembourg Investment Group plans to further develop the property and act as asset manager, while ProjektWert will act as property manager. Mitiska is allocating the asset to its institutional fund "First Retail International 2 (FRI 2)", launched in 2016.

“Our first German purchase strengthens our position as the leading investors in the European retail industry. We have many other deals incoming and are currently investigating possible investment options and collaborations to expand our German, Western and Central European portfolio”, Mitiska Reim’s chairman, Luc Geuten, said.

Mitiska wasted little time in signing its second German deal two weeks later, a retail park in Freiberg (Am Häuersteig 1-10a), a town located between Dresden and Chemnitz in Saxony. Here it teamed up in a joint venture with Frankfurt-based Zamberk Real Estate Ventures (ZREV), with the asset also being allocated to its "First Retail International 2 (FRI 2)" fund. The 37,000 sqm property with 1,500 parking slots is fully-leased to 25 retail tenants, including Kaufland, OBI and Müller Drogeriemarkt, along with a filling station. The financing was provided by IKB.

Mitiska REIM owns and manages a portfolio of 33 retail parks and 12 project developments for new parks with a total gross lettable area of about 340,000 sqm in Belgium, France Spain, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Serbia and now Germany. According to Stefan Klug, Head of Germany, several further transactions are in the due diligence phase.