R1BN PAID FOR SHOPPING CENTRE

LISTED MAS Real Estate has acquired the Flensburg Galerie shopping centre in Germany for €62.55 million (R1 billion). MAS said yesterday that the shopping centre was one of the assets it had previously disclosed as part of its acquisition pipeline. The company said the transaction was in line with the group’s investment strategy of expanding the German portfolio through the selective acquisition of good quality assets where there was potential to unlock further value. It said that €750 000 of the purchase price for the centre would be retained until the lease area of new tenant Netto was handed over in accordance with the terms of the lease agreement. MAS said the centre comprised 83 units with a total lettable area of about 25 540m², with a current vacancy of 14 percent. It said the opening of a Netto supermarket early next year would drive further footfall to the centre, which benefited from its own 250 underground parking spaces. The current passing rent was €4.09 ma year at a weighted average rental of €15.10 a square metre, excluding the car park, plus additional income of about €402 414 in the year to December last year from revenue-based leases. Malcolm Levy, an executive director of MAS, said Flensburg Galerie was the main shopping centre in the inner city of Flensburg in Sch les wig Holstein in the north of Germany, adjacent to the Danish border, and its acquisition demonstrated MAS’s continued ability to source and acquire highly attractive retail investments in prime locations. Levy said MAS’s growing German platform was well placed to implement a number of asset management initiatives in the short term. Shares in MAS rose 1.34 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R21.95.