Unibail buys Nice-Etoile

The French leader in commercial property business buys Nice-Etoile (the Nice 100,000m² mall) from a Dutch pension fund. The transaction should not reach one billion francs.

Nice-Etoile mall has been bought by the French group Unibail. An agreement protocol has been signed with the Dutch pension fund PGGM Pensionendfonds. It deals with more than 80% of the building, but 19.6% are held by the British group C&A (4,300m²).Almost a one billion franc turnoverUnibail, which should be the owner of the mall from September 30th 2000 has been chosen among four other selected applicants last July. Two among them were foreign groups. The transaction amount has been kept secret. Normally, it would not reach one billion francs.Nice-Etoile, in downtown Nice, rue Jean Médecin was inaugurated in April 1982. The building counts 100,000m² of trade areas (about 100 shops), offices and flats (146 apartments), and a 54,000m² parking lot (2,200 places among which 400 private).The transaction does not concern the apartments, nor the private parking lot, nor the C&A private area. In 1999, the mall turnover reached 945 million francs, plus 10% compared with the previous year.A restructuring of some areas has been plannedSome changes could occur in the management. Nice-Etoile is now managed by Sociétés des Centres Commerciaux (Paris), while Espace Expansion, the Unibail subsidiary has its own integrated structure of management (it manages 18 malls).On the other hand, a restructuring of some trade areas had already been suggested before the transaction. The FNAC for example would like to get bigger, the new owner may thus plan the change before the end of the year.