Another real estate fund enters the Russian market

As Kommersant has learned, another large fund has debuted on the Russian real estate market - the American Apollo Real Estate Advisers. His first project in Russia was the purchase from Metro Group of a shopping center in Kotelniki near Moscow, which previously housed Marktkauf, and now Real and Castorama. Experts estimated the transaction amount at $100 million.

The general director of the Russian office of Castorama, Oleg Pisklov, told Kommersant that Apollo Real Estate Advisers had entered the Russian market. In June, in the Marktkauf shopping center with a total area of 29 thousand square meters. m in Kotelniki near Moscow, the first metropolitan store of the chain was opened. According to Mr. Pisklov, the lessor of the premises for Castorama is the American investment fund Apollo, specializing in real estate investments.

Previously, the shopping center in Kotelniki belonged to the German Edeka, which also owns Marktkauf. In October last year, Edeka abandoned development in Russia and sold the shopping center to Metro Group, which placed the Real hypermarket there.

The Russian office of Metro confirmed the sale of the center, but they say that now its owner is the Avtotorgservis company. General Director of RTM (manages the Marktkauf shopping center under an agreement with Apollo) Alexey Linkov explained to Kommersant that Avtotorgservis is a Russian subsidiary of Apollo. Apollo representative in Russia James Gilbert also confirmed the deal, adding that it was closed at the end of last year. He says that Apollo has “serious plans” in the Russian market, but does not disclose details.

Experts believe that Metro successfully sold the shopping center in Kotelniki. According to Nina Novikova, head of the retail space research department at CB Richard Noble Gibbons, Metro bought the property from Edeka for about $70 million. And Apollo could have purchased the shopping center for $100 million, adds Andrey Zakrevsky, senior vice president of Knight Frank.

Apollo Real Estate Advisors was established in 1993 in the USA. He has already invested more than $7 billion in real estate in Europe. This is the fund’s second transaction to purchase real estate from the Metro Group: last year it bought the premises of the chain’s stores in Poland.

According to Mr. Linkov, together with the shopping center, the fund bought a 10-hectare plot from Metro AG. A Kommersant source close to Apollo says that the fund is also “actively interested” in real estate in Russia and is considering the possibility of purchasing “a number of shopping centers in the regions.” In addition to the shopping center, it is planned to build a business center on the site in Kotelniki, Kommersant’s interlocutor says.

More than 200 thousand square meters can be built on the site in Kotelniki. m, says Mr. Zakrevsky. Investments in such a project could amount to $300-350 million, estimated Pavel Lebedev, vice president of the development company RIGroup.

In recent years, real estate funds have become the main investors in the Russian market. The Hungarian fund TriGranit plans to spend €5 billion on Russian real estate, the Irish Quinn Properties - $5 billion, Morgan Stanley - $3.6 billion, the Austrian Meinl European Land - $2.3 billion. According to Jones Lang Lasalle, last year only in retail real estate the funds invested $4 billion, or 40% of all investments. Nina Novikova explains this by the high profitability of this segment - 10-12% per annum versus 4-6% in Europe.

Anna Kommersant-Ryabova, Khalil Kommersant-Aminov

Apollo docked with Metro