The firm has been “active in almost all the sizeable retail transactions concluded in the last two years”, Tim Seconde, the RPE Portugal representative, stressed to Iberian Property, explaining that in this country “we also work in the office sector, a segment in which we have been gaining visibility, with some deals about to close imminently”.
The sales of CascaiShopping (2013), of Alegro Alfragide (2014), of Alegro Setúbal (2015), and the purchase of Algarve Shopping and of Estação Viana (2016), are just some of the shopping centre transactions mediated by RPE in Portugal. A track record which will soon be strengthened, given that, “we have been mandated to negotiate the sale of two shopping centres in the central-northern region of the country”, Tim Seconde revealed.
The sale & leaseback of supermarkets is another highly dynamic area of business for RPE, since it has already made “acquisitions to the value of 255 million euros just of Continente supermarkets for international investors in the past twelve months”.
With more than 15 years’ experience in the Portuguese market, Tim Seconde is confident in relation to the development of retail investment activity which, he believes, should represent once again “approximately 60-70% of the total volume of real estate investment volume at the end of this year”, similar to what happened in 2015.
“With the increase in available capital in Europe, the demand for real estate assets with safe returns and of large dimension continues to rise also in Portugal, superceding pre-crisis levels”, he affirms, estimating that, “yields could still shrink until the end of 2016”.