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Immochan Will Develop Offices and a Hotel

10 June 2018

First, it was food retail; now it’s the real estate market’s turn. About two months after changing the name of the Pão de Açúcar and Jumbo hypermarkets to Auchan Retail, the French group Auchan announced that Immochan – the owner of the Alegro shopping centres in Portugal – will be renamed Ceetrus.

“Today [June 5] we are beginning a new phase in the process that began two years ago,” Mário Costa, general director of Ceetrus in Portugal, told Expresso. “The new brand is a new beginning,” he added. A beginning that goes well beyond the change of name and image, since the logo also changed.

“This new brand reflects our new identity as a real estate developer with a strategy that aims at the diversification of business areas that goes well beyond the simple management of shopping centres. We will capitalise on our experience in the commercial real estate sector to go further, completing multipurpose projects that contribute to the sustainable development of urban areas and the well-being of its inhabitants,” the executive explained to Expresso.

In other words, the former Immochan – now Ceetrus – has ceased to be a company that focuses only on developing and managing shopping malls, as it has been until now, to become a developer which will carry out all types of real estate projects. In Portugal, it will start with offices and hotels.

“We are currently working on a project for an office with a hotel, restaurants and retail,” Mario Costa said, without providing any further details. What is known is that the project stays faithful to the image of Ceetrus’ other projects where it acts as a developer of shopping centres.

“Some of the investments that are currently underway that represent Ceetrus’s strategy of investing in mixed-use projects are, for example, [our investments in] housing and logistics in Hungary; offices and housing in Romania; the Europacity project in France that aims to create a new central zone in Paris and Ceetrus’ project in Spain at the Vigo station, where it is developing 125,000 square meters in the city centre,” Mr Costa explained.

€510 million for Portugal

The company’s first multipurpose project in Portugal, which brings together offices and hotels, is being developed from scratch, but Ceetrus’s goal is also to take advantage of the shopping centres they already have and turn them into multipurpose projects. “We want current assets to be strengthened with other areas of activity to create multi-purpose living spaces in accordance with the attitudes and ambitions we have assumed in our new strategy,” the executive said.

“Our investments are always managed with five-year horizons. Globally, we will invest about €4.5 billion between 2018 and 2022, and we have planned investments for this period of around €510 million in Portugal,” Mr Costa added.

The company’s investments, he says, will be very much based on equity. “Ceetrus manages lines of international financing and always invests with high equity participation.”

Company in Ribalta

Ceetrus, while still known as Immochan, has always had a discreet business profile, but the company has been generating headlines this year for good reasons.

The company was involved in the largest commercial real estate deal of the year – at least to date – buying the Sintra Forum, Sintra Retail Park and Forum Montijo for €410 million.

Now comes the name change and the company’s announcement that it will invest €510 million in Portugal, investments that will certainly create more jobs in the country.

Ceetrus’ capital will be invested in new multi-purpose projects created from scratch, following the company’s announced strategy, as well as in new shopping centres and in the incorporation of new offices, hotels and housing with the malls that already operate in the country. The Alegro brand will be of particular focus, including Alfragide and Setúbal, both of which resulted from the expansion of retail galleries alongside existing Jumbo hypermarkets.

Original Story: Jornal Expresso – Ana Baptista

Photo: D.R.

Translation: Richard Turner