Belgian real estate firm Mitiska Reim will enter the French retail market with its recent acquisition of a retail park near Caen. It has been an eventful year so far, with acquisitions in Germany, Romania and Spain as well.
Local convenience shopping hub
Val Saint-Clair retail park, close to Caen (in Northern France), has 13,500 sqm of store space, spread across eighteen locations. Retailers like Electro Depot, Action, Sport 2000 and Maxi Zoo are already present in the retail park.
Mitiska Reim said it wanted to achieve a stronger local footprint, with more attention towards the consumer’s daily needs. The site already offers a direct route to the Carrefour Hypermarket nearby, but Mitiska wants to attract more local retailers to help meet consumer demands.
This first French acquisition helps Mitiska consolidate its position as an investor in European retail parks. “Our philosophy is to invest and create added value for mature and financially healthy retail parks”, CEO Axel Despriet said. “This philosophy is paying off, because France is now the third European country, following Spain and Germany, where we have introduced our success formula this year alone. Over the past few months, we have also expanded our portfolio in other countries like Romania. Each of these acquisitions leads to new opportunities: this French acquisition is just one of many planned acquisitions.”
Mitiska Reim now owns 47 retail parks across Belgium, Germany, France, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Spain and Czechia. The Caen purchase is the first move made by investment manager for France, Pierre Rochard. He only moved to Mitiska last month, having worked for Carrefour previously.
