Ireland's Greenman adds €26m centre to retail fund

Ireland's Greenman Investments has bought the StadtGalerie in Datteln, North Rhine-Westphalia, for its “Greenman Retail+” fund, in a share deal. The deal is the third this year for the aquisitive Dublin-based fund manager, which is specialised on the German Fachmarktzentren, retail parks and hybrid centre market.

The investment volume for the 10,000 sqm of rental space in the hybrid shopping center amounts to €26.4m. The center has 20 tenants - anchored by grocer Rewe with 24% of the floor space, followed by C&A with 15%. The property was sold by a joint venture of Concepta Projektentwicklung and Black Horse Development (both from Düsseldorf).

Hybrid centres range in size between specialist retail parks (“Fachmarktzentren”) and larger retail centres. They are typically anchored by a large food retailer, and cover the entire range of food, near food, and non-food needs. Centrally located in small and medium-sized towns they cater for demand from the surrounding areas not served by large shopping centres.

Datteln has about 34,000 inhabitants and is near to the city of Dortmund. The Stadgalerie Datteln is in the heart of the town on its busy Neumarkt Square, which Greenman CEO and co-founder John Wilkinson describes as a major benefit of the property.

In a separate joint venture deal earlier in April this year, Greenman bought 29 EDEKA stores with a volume of €95m for one of its funds. In that transaction, as in this latest deal, Greenman was advised for the sale by Berlin law firm Bottermann Khorrami.

Greenman, which was set up in 2005, structures funds under its Luxembourg SICAV platform for Irish private wealth investors and European institutional investors. The company currently manages a portfolio of around €279 million comprising of 50 assets with a total rental space of some 181,000 sqm throughout Germany.