Largest retail operation in 10 years / The German group has outbid the other candidates, including CBRE, ECE and Henderson.
The process to purchase Diagonal Mar is entering its final stretch. With nothing but the final details left to finalise on what will be the largest real estate operation in the shopping centre segment for ten years, Deutsche Bank has taken the lead by outbidding CBRE Global Investors, ECE and Henderson Real Estate, the other three candidates left in the contest.
According to market sources Deutsche Bank’s offer, for €505 million, could be signed at the end of this month.
If this operation goes ahead, Northwood Investors will sell this property, which it acquired from the Irish bad bank Nama (National Asset Management Agency) in 2013 for €150 million.
Changes of ownership
It is not the first time that this property has changed hands. The real estate company Hines was awarded a mixed use project at the end of the 1990s, which included a residential area, offices, hotels and a large shopping centre with a constructed surface area of 100,500 sqm and a GLA of 87,000 sqm, plus 5,000 parking spaces.
In 2002, the German investment fund Deka paid around €240 million for the property, which it subsequently sold to the Irish investor group Quinlan for €300 million in 2006, in its first operation in Spain. Nevertheless, after the Irish bubble burst, this asset was sold to the banks.
On 7 June, a process was opened whereby investors were invited to submit non-binding offers for the property. 18 offers were submitted in total, including one from the Socimi Merlin (the only Spanish firm to participate in the auction). In the end, only four candidates were selected to go through to the final bid: CBRE Global Investment, ECE, Henderson TH and Deutsche Bank.