Kommersant: AERE investment fund may sell Russian assets to the Ramo-M group

The investment fund Atrium European Real Estate (AERE) may sell its Russian assets to the Ramo-M group, which owns the Red Square shopping centers (TC) in Krasnodar. About it informed Kommersant, citing sources.

Ramo-M may acquire all seven Park House shopping centers owned by AERE, the newspaper writes. According to two more interlocutors, the investment fund did indeed find a buyer, but did not name the counterparty.

The AERE Fund works with investments in commercial real estate in Eastern Europe. She owns more than 30 properties in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The company was one of the first foreign investors in the Russian real estate market. She closed her first deal in Russia in 2004. Now AERE owns seven shopping malls “Park House” in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and other regions. Their total area is 420,000 sq. m.

The company put up for sale its assets in the Russian Federation even before the start of the military operation in Ukraine and the departure of foreign companies in connection with this – in 2017. Consultants who worked with AERE said that it had lost interest in this market after the 2014 crisis, when the commercial real estate market was seriously affected by the depreciation of the ruble. AERE has stated in its reports that it plans to focus in particular on investments in real estate in Poland.

Negotiations on the acquisition of its Russian assets were led by the British warehouse developer Raven Property Group, as well as the owner of the developer Granel Ilshat Nigmatullin, but the deal with them never took place. In the summer of 2021, the source of Vedomosti toldthat the deal to sell the Russian assets of the investment fund to the developer AFI Development Lev Leviev fell through, and then the applicant was the company Retail Park 1 LLC.

JSC “Ramo-M” owns five shopping centers “Red Square” with a total area of ​​405 thousand square meters. m in the Krasnodar Territory – Krasnodar, Armavir, Novorossiysk, Anapa and Tuapse. IN list “Kings of Russian real estate” from Forbes “Ramo-M” is in 25th place. In 2021, Forbes estimated the rental income of the company at $65 million.