Blackstone, assisted by advisors Rothschild and Jones Lang LaSalle,is said to be in talks with an Asian group to sell all its Italian real estate activities in the outlet sector, Il Sole 24 Ore wrote yesterday adding that talks are with the Sasseur group, a company listed in Singapore, owning a number of retail outlets in China, in the cities of Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei, Kunming, Changchun, Xi’an, Guiyang and Changsha, with investments totaling about 20 billion renminbi and an area occupied of 2 million square meters.
Blackstone’s portfolio would be valued at over 800 million euros. Over the last four years, the US private equity giant has invested over 500 million in Italy to acquire five shopping citadels: the Franciacorta Outlet Village (126 million, sold by DEGI-Aberdeen Asset Management) and the Valdichiana Outlet Village (170 million euros, sold by DEGI-Aberdeen Asset Management too); the Mantua and the Puglia Outlet Village (former Fashion District), paid a total of 123.7 million, sold by Earchimede (Mittel) and bought through the MoMa fund, managed by Idea Fimit sgr and fully subscribed by the Blackstone Real Estate Partners IV fund (see the fund management report at the end of 2015 here); and the Palmanova Outlet Village (80 million, sold by Marangi Immobiliare, see the press release at the time). All this for a total of about 150 thousand square meters, divided into 600 stores, compared to a total of 630 thousand square meters of outlets throughout the Italian territory: therefore a quarter of the entire capacity. The five outlets are visited by about 17 million visitors each year.
The outlets in question were brought together under the Land of Fashion brand in October 2017 under the direction of Kryalos Asset Management. The management is the property manager Multi Outlet Management Italy, an Italian branch of the Dutch group Multi Mall Management, also owned by the US giant and of which Paolo Bottelli, founder of Kryalos, is chairman.
