Castellana Properties Incorporates Unibail’s Shopping Centres into its Portfolio

28 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Castellana Properties is now the ninth largest Socimi in Spain. The company, which is controlled by the South African fund Vukile, has doubled the value of its portfolio to €900 million by incorporating the firm Morzal Property into the fold. Morzal is the vehicle through which Vukile purchased four shopping centres from the giant Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in July.

The General Shareholders’ Meeting of Castellana approved the purchase of 100% of Morzal at the same price as the initial operation was closed, according to Eje Prime. The incorporation of the company, which paid Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield €490 million in July for its four assets, has been carried out through a capital increase subscribed by a non-monetary contribution of Morzal’s share capital, attributing a value of €6 per share to the shares of Castellana Properties.

Following this incorporation, the Socimi has increased its portfolio with the following shopping centres: Los Arcos (Sevilla), Bahía Sur (Cádiz), El Faro (Badajoz) and Vallsur (Valladolid). In total, the manager is adding a gross leasable area (GLA) of 121,300 m2 to reach a total of 318,622 m2 distributed all over Spain.

The market capitalisation of the company now amounts to €460 million, whilst the average value of its assets has increased from €27 million to €48 million, and its vacant space has decreased from 3.3% to 1.8%.

“The acquisition of these four shopping centres significantly strengthens our portfolio and reaffirms our commitment to the retail real estate sector in Spain”, said Alfonso Brunet, CEO of Castellana Properties.

Similarly, in terms of the future, Vukile has the commitment to inject another €200 million into Castellana over the coming years, as revealed by Eje Prime. In April, the fund subscribed an agreement with the Socimi to undertake capital increases for that maximum value in the event that it does not find the necessary partners to continue buying retail parks and shopping centres with, “given the need for financing to undertake such investments”.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake