Gucci owner Kering has bought a retail block on Milan’s top shopping street from Blackstone for €1.3bn in Europe’s biggest property deals for two years, as intense demand from luxury groups helps high-end retail real estate defy the wider downturn.
The sale of Via Monte Napoleone 8, a building that houses Kering’s Saint Laurent store, as well as Prada and the LVMH-owned Cafe Cova, marks the largest-ever single asset real estate sale by Blackstone in Europe. It is also the latest in a series of large real estate purchases by luxury fashion houses seeking to lock down flagship locations in key global cities.
The race to control these sites has made luxury retail properties one of the niches where large deals are still being done, at a time when high borrowing costs and uncertainty over the wider market have depressed global real estate deal volumes by more than half and made big ticket sales a rarity.
Kering said on Thursday that the investment was part of a “selective real estate strategy, aimed at securing key highly desirable locations for its houses”.
(source:financial times)
