According to a public filing, Plaza Centers has won a tender to buy a loan on the holding and operating company of Liberec Plaza shopping center, a project it developed, in Liberec, North Bohemia. The €20.4m loan was provided by two commercial banks, of which one was Hungarian. The developer and investor of the center, Plaza, acquired the loan for €8.5m, at a 58 percent discount. Plaza wrote in a statement that it expects to record a €12m profit on the discount in the second half of 2015.
The 17,000 sqm Liberec Plaza, with its 75 units, a supermarket, sports center and office space opened in 2009. It opened in the midst of a serious recession in the hyper-competitive Liberec market, dominated by Multidevelopment’s Forum and ING’s Nisa shopping centers. In its announcement, Plaza nevertheless writes that it expects that the mall will deliver a net operating income of circa €850,000 in 2015, which would reflect a yield of approximately 10 percent on the loan purchase price.
