A fund controlled by Morgan Stanley has begun negotiations to acquire several shopping centers in and around Moscow. The daily Vedomosti claims the list of malls it’s targeting includes the Columbus shopping center (227,000 sqm) near metro station Prague, Atrium (103,000 sqm) near Kursk metro station, Riviera (298,000 sqm) on Avtozavodskaya street, and Red Whale (140,000 sqm) in Mytishchi.
It appears that negotiations on the Columbus have advanced the furthest, though there is still no agreement on price. Reports claim that one of its shareholders, State Duma deputy Ildar Samiev, is holding out for $500m, despite market estimates of its value being closer to $380m – $455m. The fact that another shareholder is in jail on bribery charges could be complicating matters as well, notes the newspaper.
Meanwhile Riviera’s owner Sergey Gordeev is looking for a bid of as much as $700m, which one Knight Frank brokerage representative said was roughly twice what the asset’s current market valuation. Morgan Stanley began negotiations to acquire Red Whale back in in 2014, after the sharp devaluation of the ruble, but its owner, BTR Group, rejected an offer of $700m. A shareholder in BTR Group, Igor Rempel, has reportedly confirmed that there are no other buyers for the property, while Knight Frank has estimated its current value at between $250m and $300m. Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley acquired the Metropolis in Moscow for $1.2bn from Capital Partners, a Kazakh developer.
