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«Multi Corporation, Europe’s largest retail developer, today announced that it has closed on a new Turkish retail property fund. The Multi Retail Turkey fund ("the Fund") is a real estate development platform that consists of 21 completed, under construction or planned shopping centers throughout Turkey with a projected real estate value upon completion of € 4.3 billion that will be financed through a combination of Fund equity and bank facilities.
The establishment of the Fund creates Turkey’s largest portfolio of retail real estate assets at the same time as being the largest publicly announced private equity investment in the Turkish real estate sector in 2008. This premier collection under the Forum brand includes the 178,000 square meter Forum Istanbul which, when opened in mid-2009, will be the third largest in Europe and two more of the largest in Istanbul, Forum Bakirkoy and Forum TEM.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ("CPPIB") is the firstfounding investor with an equity commitment of € 250 million. One of North America’s leading institutional real estate investors, CPPIB manages the C$117.4 billion CPP Fund and is a professional investment management organization that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits. Multi is concluding negotiations with the Fund’s second founding investor to close before yearend and may seek additional investors but will retain majority ownership of the Fund.
The Multi Retail Turkey fund is focused on downtown locations in cities covering 70% of the Turkish population. Five of the shopping centers are already opened and fully leased, while eight others are under construction. Multi Turkmall, Multi’s wholly owned Turkish subsidiary, is the developer and T+T Design, Multi’s in-house architectural group, is responsible for concept development and creative coordination of all the Fund’s projects». (CS della Società)
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