Three in one. It’s the Belgian remake that Equilis has just done by selling three of its Walloon commercial real estate developments within a few days of each other: the Parenthèse complex in Gosselies, the Court Village in Court-Saint-Etienne, and the retail space in phases 2 and 3 of the mixed redevelopment of the Papeteries de Genval. To this we can add the sale of the Finestrelles shopping centre in the suburbs of Barcelona to the French real estate company Frey for 127.5 million euros. This is a nice package filled by the real estate development arm of the Mestdagh family just before the summer break.
For the latter, this is just a healthy portfolio arbitrage, which gives the group the equity to go back on the hunt for new projects here and elsewhere in Europe after two particularly complicated years for the commercial property sector.
E-maprod, the purchaser of the Genval paper mill shops, has just opened its new Brussels offices on Avenue Brugmann and currently has a huge appetite, with resources to match its various ambitions. In twenty years, the Brussels-based company has built its reputation as a “master craftsman” of real estate in France and Belgium thanks to its unique structure, capable of combining three complementary businesses: real estate promotion (12% of activity), property development (33%) and asset management (55%). It has already marketed more than 2,000 flats and its Belgian property portfolio now includes 350 internally managed properties.
