Mercialys Ramps up Its Development With the Acquisition in Two Phases of the Investment Management Company Imocom Partners, the French Retail Park Market Leader

Regulatory News:

Mercialys (Paris:MERY) is announcing today that it has signed a firm agreement with a view to acquiring the investment management company Imocom Partners. The transaction is structured in two phases. In 2023, Imocom Partners’ shareholders will sell 30% of its capital to Mercialys for a price of Euro 7 million. The remaining 70% will be acquired by Mercialys during the first half of 2025 following an interim period during which the current management team will accompany and support the company’s development. The price for this second tranche will be adjusted in line with the performances of the investment management company and the underlying fund. Each of these two stages is subject to prior authorization from the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF).

Imocom Partners manages the OPPCI fund ImocomPark, whose shares are reserved primarily for institutional investors and family offices. This fund, with a maturity of 2032, holds a portfolio of 33 retail parks in France, with a total rental area of over 385,000 sq.m, let to around 400 tenants. The fund’s assets represent a value of Euro 670 million including transfer taxes and generate Euro 40 million of annual rental income. Thanks to Imocom Partners’ continued development since it was founded in 2011, this management company is today positioned as a market leader in the retail park segment.

This investment will enable the two companies to develop a partnership, while ensuring compliance with the regulations concerning potential conflicts of interest and the independence of Imocom Partners for managing the OPPCI fund. The sites managed by Mercialys and Imocom Partners share core features on a number of different levels, making it possible to capitalize on their respective areas of real estate know-how: anchoring in out-of-town areas in key consumption areas of urban hubs, accessibility of the retail offering and rents for retailers, proximity-based retail mixes aimed at satisfying essential everyday needs.

The value creation for the two companies will include stronger visibility in relation to tenant retailers and extended digital and environmental expertise, as well as an increased capacity to carry out retail or mixed real estate development projects in a context of the greater importance of ensuring effective control over artificial ground cover.

Mercialys and Imocom Partners believe that the retail real estate sector has solid fundamentals over the medium term and opportunities to generate value supported by the context of pressures on land reserves, linked in particular to the French “Climate and Resilience” Law. The development of new retail property funds therefore represents a major potential source of value creation. Mercialys will be able to invest, alongside institutional investors, in new funds created by the investment management company.