Lamda Development to list shopping mall business

Lamda Development said yesterday it has bought out HSBC Property Investments’ stake in Greece’s biggest shopping center and plans to list its shopping mall business on the Athens stock exchange. The country’s largest listed property developer said its decision to buy HSBC Property’s 50 percent stake in the Mall Athens for 200 million euros, and take full ownership, reflected its optimism about Greece’s economic outlook. Its chief executive officer Odisseas Athanassiou separately told the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting yesterday that the developer would transfer the mall and two other Greek shopping centers to its Lamda Malls subsidiary and then list the unit, but did not give a timeframe. Lamda Malls is 32 percent owned by Varde Partners, which bought its stake in April. “The 100 percent acquisition of the Mall Athens, one of the biggest investments in our country... reflects our [confidence] in the longterm prospects of the Greek economy,” he said. More than 11 million people visit the Mall Athens every year, which employs about 2,500 workers. report by an independent evaluator showed yesterday. The report, the first assessment of the functioning of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), was commissioned last year. “The EFSF/ESM fulfilled their mandate of safeguarding financial stability in the euro area, with support from other crisis measures,” said the report. Evaluating the bailouts granted to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus since the 2010 crisis, the report said governments asked for help too late. That made the rescue more costly and led to one country’s problems spilling over to another.