ECE Real Estate Partners sell Haid-Center Linz

ECE Real Estate Partners have successfully sold Haid-Center Linz to institutional investors in a 130 million EUR transaction.

The Haid-Center with 80 stores on a sales area of around 35,000 m² was acquired for the “ECE European Prime Shopping Centre Fund I” in 2012 and has since been comprehensively developed and upgraded through modernization and optimization of the tenant mix. The transaction is accompanied by Aareal Bank with a "green loan" financing. ECE will continue to be responsible for the management of the center.

After the sale of the "Avenida" shopping center in Poznań in February 2021, Haid-Center Linz was the last of twelve centers held by the fund launched in 2011 to be sold within the planned lifetime. Over the term of the fund, the target returns have been achieved and the invested equity almost doubled.

During the last two years which had been affected by the Corona pandemic, the shopping centers managed by ECE Real Estate Partners have proven to be very crisis resilient. Despite temporary rent reductions to support the tenants affected by lockdowns, the planned distributions were largely met and headline rents as wells as occupancy levels remained stable. Due to indexed leases with a corresponding sales component, retail properties offer an attractive return profile also in the current inflationary market environment.

Dr. Volker Kraft, Managing Partner of ECE Real Estate Partners: "The transaction shows that professionally managed retail properties currently offer an attractive entry opportunity for long-term oriented investors. We will continue our investment strategy together with our investors and further expand our commitment with new products in this segment to take advantage of opportunities as they arise."