Casino Sells Hypermarket Portfolio for €555m

19 Jul, 2006, Warsaw

Advised by Cushman & Wakefield’s Polish office, French hypermarket operator Groupe Casino has sold a real estate portfolio of 16 hypermarkets in Poland for €555 million to GE Real Estate Central Europe.

Simultaneous to the transaction, Casino is disposing of its Géant hypermarket business throughout Poland to German retailer Metro Group and disposing of the Polish operations of its Leader Price supermarket chain to UK retailer Tesco.

GE has agreed 10-year leases on each of the 16 hypermarkets. The portfolio comprises a total gross lettable area of 339,686 sq m, of which 319,058 sq m comprises hypermarket space and 20,628 sq m is retail gallery space.

John Ozinga, Executive Vice-President of Groupe Casino, said, “Cushman & Wakefield was in the position to provide us with invaluable in-depth knowledge and experience of the retail real estate market in Poland. We are delighted to have worked with them on such a key transaction.”

Michael Atwell, Partner and Head of Warsaw’s Capital Markets Group of Cushman & Wakefield, commented, “This is a landmark deal for Central Europe, representing the largest transaction in the last two years and will be a benchmark for other retail deals in the region. We provided real estate advice and worked in co-operation with Lazard, the investment bank on this transaction. We are very happy to be involved in such a significant deal.”

This transaction is subject to Metro Group’s final board approval.

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