Mall owner Intu Properties has been busy over the Christmas period, today announcing its acquisition of Zaragoza – a shopping centre in Puerto Venecia, Spain.

By exchanging contracts with an entity indirectly fully owned by the Orion European Real Estate Fund III C.V. (a fund managed by Orion Capital Managers), Intu has acquired Zaragoza for €451m. The UK based company, which owns the Trafford and Victoria shopping centres, amongst others, worked closely with Eurofund (its development partner in Spain) for the original development of this award winning centre. The retail park opened in 2008 and the shopping centre opened in 2012.

Intu, in partnership with Eurofund, has options on four development sites in Malaga, Valencia, Palma and Vigo. The Puerto Venecia acquisition substantially strengthens Intu‘s market position in Spain, ahead of embarking on the first of these projects which is likely to be the Malaga site.

Intu will be giving consideration during 2015 to introducing an investment partner into Puerto Venecia and possibly the development site at Malaga.

David Fischel, Chief Executive of Intu, commented:

“The acquisition of the Puerto Venecia shopping centre following last year‘s successful acquisition of Parque Principado, Oviedo, is another great addition for the Group. The transaction substantially accelerates our activities in Spain, which is a country where we see major opportunities for the type of genuinely regional destination centre in which the Group specialises, like intu Trafford Centre in the UK. Puerto Venecia represents such an asset, with an attractive combination of retail, restaurants and leisure. The centre is seeing strong growth in footfall and retailer sales from key names and provides an excellent template for the future development of sites we have under option, such as in Malaga where we expect to move the project forward significantly in 2015.”