A portfolio of Cora hypermarkets in France has been purchased by Barings and the transaction has been agreed as a sale-and-leaseback with Cora, with all four assets agreeing to 12-year leases.
The Cora assets, which are a chain of hypermarkets owned by Louis Delhaize Group, are situated in the well-known French secondary cities of Metz, Mulhouse, Evian and Quincy-sous-Sénart and include a total lettable area of 85,876sq m across 400,000sq m of land.
Gunther Deutsch, Managing Director and Head of Europe Real Estate Transactions, at Barings, said: “This portfolio was a unique opportunity to acquire a portfolio of dominant local retail assets. Our preferred sectors across Europe continue to be logistics, office and residential, but the quality of the portfolio, combined with a very strong tenant covenant, excess land and long leases, made it a compelling investment prospect.”
Josselin Granier, Group Real Estate Director, at Louis Delhaize said: “The terms and conditions of this pure S&L transaction were determined considering the Group’s experience of similar deals operated over the last few years for hypermarkets, supermarkets, and shopping malls in various countries. Securing a long-term leaseback with conservative rents and market conditions remains our core strategy. We took this decision after thoroughly assessing the quality of each of our real estate assets and we see it as an important leverage for further local development. We look forward to working with Barings as a long-term partner securing and developing our commercial footprint.”
