The developer leaves the warehouse – Newspaper Kommersant No. 223 (7424) dated 12/01/2022

Before leaving the Russian market, the Belgian developer Ghelamco decided to sell the only asset in the country – a logo park near Dmitrov, Moscow Region, with an estimated value of 11 billion rubles. At least four companies are bidding for the facility. The government commission may not agree on the sale of an asset to a Western company at a price that it wants to bail out, experts point out. And if the deal goes through, the buyer will have to look for a replacement for large international tenants, who are also curtailing business in Russia.

The fact that Ghelamco is selling its only remaining object in Russia – a logo park with offices with an area of ​​243 thousand square meters. m and a plot of almost 30 hectares in Yermolino near Dmitrov near Moscow, three sources told Kommersant in the real estate market. According to them, after that the company intends to leave the Russian Federation. A Kommersant source close to the company confirmed the talks on the sale of the asset. Ghelamco and CORE.XP, which is acting as a consultant on the deal, declined to comment. Ghelamco’s headquarters in Belgian Ghent did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

This company, founded in 1985 by Paul Geisen, builds commercial real estate and owns assets in Belgium, France, the UK and Poland. In the first half of 2022, Ghelamco, according to its own data, gained €54 million, and the value of the portfolio is estimated at €1.23 billion. In the annual report for 2020, the company indicated that in November of the same year it sold its other warehouse in Dmitrov near Moscow to the fund Ghelamco European Property Fund NV (personally owned by Paul Geisen, not affiliated with Ghelamco).

The head of the warehouse and industrial real estate department at the Commonwealth Partnership, Yegor Dorofeev, estimates the Ghelamco logopark in Ermolino at 9–11 billion rubles, and Denis Platov, director of the capital markets department at Nikoliers, at 9.5–10 billion rubles. Sources of “Kommersant” name among the applicants for the object of Central Properties, “Ventall-Development”, the developer of luxury housing Vesper and created by the RDIF consortium, Arab Mubadala and other Professional Logistics Technologies (PLT) funds. The general director of Ventall-Development, Valery Zhukov, confirmed that the company had made its offer, but the buyer considers it “not marketable enough.” PLT, Central Properties and Vesper declined to comment. But Kommersant’s interlocutors, close to PLT and Central Properties, confirmed the participation of these companies in the negotiations.

Western developers began to announce their exit from the Russian market in the spring of 2022. This process gained the most serious momentum by August, says Nikolai Goryunov, director of the department of capital markets and investments at IBC Real Estate. But selling a Ghelamco facility may not be easy. Denis Platov warns that the new owner will face the difficult task of replacing foreign tenants who have also announced they are leaving Russia.

Another risk for a potential buyer is a significant decrease in demand for warehouses. According to NF Group forecasts, by the end of 2022, the volume of transactions in this segment of the real estate market in Moscow and the Moscow region will halve year on year, to 1.3 million square meters. In addition, retailers are seriously competing in the market, which this year actively offer surpluses of their warehouse space for sublease, consultants say. According to their calculations, in January-September 2022, the share of transactions with sublease warehouses reached 20%.

In addition, Denis Platov warns, there is a risk that the government commission will not approve the transaction, which will create restrictions on the sale of the asset. In September, new restrictions on such transactions appeared, but this did not affect the decision of international companies to leave, explains Nikolay Goryunov. Kommersant’s sources in the market believe that the commission may not approve the sale of the asset at market value, and the seller himself will not agree to a smaller amount.

Daria Andrianova