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24 New Shopping Centres Will Open In Spain By 2020

15 September 2016 – Inmodiario

The shopping centre sector grew by 2% during the first 6 months of 2016 in Spain, which can expect to see 24 new centres opening over the next 3 years. In this sense, the shopping centre market will gain 100,000 sqm in additional space in 2017 alone. Moreover, Spain was the second placed country in Europe in terms of visitor number growth to shopping centres during the second quarter of the year, with an increase of 1.1%, behind only Switzerland, with a rise of 1.8%.

“Shopping centres are the main benchmark in the retail sector in Spain, which means that it is crucial that they follow a gradual increasing trend, and that that is in line with the rest of the sector”, said Gerard Marcet, the founding partner of Laborde Marcet, a company that manages real estate investments.

The shopping centre sector comprises up to 549 facilities and 84% of premises have a surface area of less than 300 sqm. The sector generated 330,000 new jobs in 2015, when it managed to increase sales by 6.3% compared to 2014, and reach the €41,000 million threshold. In fact, shopping centres account for 18% of the retail sector (by market share) in Spain.

Investment in the shopping centre sector in Spain amounted to €1,900 million in 2015, meanwhile investment in non-residential retail real estate assets amounted to €3,050 million, compared to €1,848 million in 2014. During the first half of this year, the figure amounted to €1,120 million, i.e. 32% of the total.

In this sense, it is worth noting that US private equity funds accounted for 22% of the transactions involving shopping centres in Spain.

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake