Savills IM exits two decade-old European retail assets

After holding each for more than a decade, Savills Investment Management sold two assets out of a European retail fund in April, IREI reports: PensionDanmark bought Absalons Gaard, a listed mixed-use building at the entrance to Copenhagen's Strøget, and Braintown Development B.V. bought the AaBe Fabriek retail park in Tilburg. Neither sale price was disclosed.

Absalons Gaard is fully let across roughly 7,500 square meters of lettable retail and office space over four floors, sitting at the entrance to Strøget, Copenhagen's pedestrian shopping street. The fully let AaBe Fabriek extends to more than 30,000 square meters across 32 units and threads a former factory through an urban redevelopment, with grocery and everyday services anchoring the tenant mix, including a food discounter and a full-range supermarket.

The holding period is the part worth pausing on. Both assets went into the fund more than ten years ago and, by Savills IM's account, came out as planned and in line with their business plans, fully let at exit and structured as a managed exit rather than a forced one, the sort of trade that leaves the buyer with income rather than a turnaround.

Ian Jones, Savills IM's head of European transactions, tells IREI the sales show best-in-class retail still attracts investor demand. The phrase narrows the claim: if this pair can sell, it is not because retail has healed but because the assets have moved out of the broad retail category, and the bid is pricing that difference.

The common thread is that neither property looks like interchangeable retail. Absalons Gaard layers office income over its retail floors, while AaBe Fabriek is a former factory whose tenant list turns on grocery and everyday needs, leaving both outside the discretionary shopping centre trade.

Sale prices were undisclosed, so the exact trade remains invisible to the market. If these two sales are any guide, European retail now trades one building at a time. The manager who brings a plain secondary centre to market next will supply the answer.