WP Carey has acquired a portfolio of eight retail stores in Croatia for a total of EUR 34.6 mln.
WP Carey has acquired a portfolio of eight retail stores in Croatia for a total of EUR 34.6 mln.
The sites will be long-term, triple-net leased to Konzum, a subsidiary of retail group Agrokor.
Agrokor is Croatia's largest food and drink producer, processor, distributor and retailer. Located in the towns surrounding the capital Zagreb as well as in busy tourist destinations along the Adriatic Coast, the stores range from modern hypermarkets to smaller traditional supermarkets.
WP Carey is a New York-based real estate investment trust specialising in corporate sale-and-leaseback and built to suit, single-tenant construction finance. It carried out the transaction through CPA®:17 - Global, one of its publicly held non-traded REIT affiliates.
Jeffrey Lefleur, managing director of WP Carey, said: ‘This transaction marks our fourth long-term investment with Agrokor over the past three years. We value Agrokor as an attractive, recession-resistant covenant that can provide us attractive risk-adjusted returns in an otherwise challenging and low-yielding investment environment in Europe.’
The firm has agreed a total of €192 mln in financing with Agrokor. WP Carey said that the retail food market fitted closely with its investment strategy of acquiring mission-critical assets from strong creditors in safe, defensive sectors.
W.P. Carey has completed over €1 bn of long-term financing for European food retailers.
