US investor Strategic Value Partners has agreed a deal to buy the Blanchardstown Centre in Dublin, in one of the biggest commercial property deals in Ireland so far this year.
SVP has agreed a deal with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs to buy the centre in a sale thought to be worth in the region of €600 million. It is SVP’s first purchase in Ireland.
Spokesmen for Goldman Sachs and SVP both declined to comment.
While it will be several months before the sale closes, the agreement likely puts to an end to the process, which was run by CBRE and Eastdil Secured. The Irish Times reported last month that SVP had entered the fray with a bid of between €550 million and €600 million. Goldman had originally put the centre on the market with a guide price of about €650 million.
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The deal will be seen as a boon to the retail sector here, coming as it does on the heels of the successful refinancing of loans tied to Dundrum Town Centre, while Eagle Street Partners was named preferred bidder of The Square in Tallaght last month.
Goldman Sachs took over the Blanchardstown Centre from the US private equity giant Blackstone for €750 million four years ago. Blackstone had forked out about €950 million to buy the asset from Stephen Vernon’s Green Property in 2016. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, crippled bricks and mortar retail in 2020 and, by October that year, Goldman was in talks to take control of the mall.
Last year, AIB agreed to sell a loan tied to the centre at a discount of about 17 per cent after it agreed terms to offload the debt to London-based Hayfin Capital Management for about 83 cent in the euro. That loan had a par value of about €175 million, and was part of a wider syndicated debt advanced against the centre. When Blackstone’s bought the centre, it is believed to have financed that deal with €250 million of equity, while the balance came from a combination of traditional senior debt and mezzanine financing provided by a syndicate of lenders that reportedly included Morgan Stanley, AIG, AIB and Goldman Sachs.
Bloomberg News first reported that Goldman Sachs and SPV had reached an agreement.
The centre includes some 112,000 sq m (1.2 million sq ft) of retail space distributed across 180 shops. The scheme is anchored by major retailers such as Dunnes Stores, Penneys and Marks & Spencer. It also comprises three external retail parks, external retail units, an office block and 7,000 free car-parking spaces.
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