ICA Real Estate and Alecta form real estate joint venture
ICA Real Estate and Alecta form real estate joint venture
Solna, Sweden, October 13, 2010
ICA Real Estate and Alecta are forming a new jointly owned real estate company. Initially the company will acquire 12 properties from ICA Real Estate Sweden, each of which is home to a Maxi ICA Hypermarket. In a previous press release, ICA announced plans to form a new property company with an outside investor.
The company, which is jointly owned by ICA and Alecta, will initially have a property portfolio valued at slightly over SEK 2 billion. The purpose of the company is to acquire, own and manage ICA stores in strategic locations.
"By forming a property company together with a long-term, financially strong investor like Alecta, we retain ICAs influence in these strategic marketplaces while at the same time improving opportunities for ICAs core businesses. The capital that is freed up facilitates further investments in ICA Real Estates retail network in order to maintain and strengthen ICAs market position," says Bo Liffner, CEO of ICA Real Estate.
The 12 properties that will be acquired by the joint venture are located in Borlänge, Botkyrka, Enköping, Falun, Karlstad, Malmö, Oskarshamn, Ronneby, Sandviken, Södertälje, Torslanda and Vetlanda.
The transaction produces no capital gain for the ICA Group, since ICA has retained influence over the properties through the joint venture.
Catella Corporate Finance has served as advisor in the transaction.
For further information, please contact: Bo Liffner, CEO of ICA Real Estate, phone +46 70 510 40 55 Jan Björk, Alecta, phone +46 70-325 51 53
ICAs press hotline, phone +46 70 253 66 60
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About ICA The ICA Group (ICA AB) is one of the Nordic regions leading retail companies, with around 2,220 of its own and retailer-owned stores in Sweden, Norway and in the three Baltic countries. The Group includes ICA Sweden, ICA Norway, Rimi Baltic and ICA Real Estate. ICA also offers financial services to Swedish customers through ICA Bank. ICA AB is a joint venture 40% owned by Hakon Invest AB and 60% by Royal Ahold N.V. of the Netherlands. According to a shareholder agreement, Royal Ahold and Hakon Invest jointly share control over ICA AB. Through Royal Ahold, ICA AB is part of an international retail network. For more information, please visit http://www.ica.se