Ingka group, which owns IKEA furniture and household goods stores and Mega shopping malls in Russia, started to look for buyers for more than 2 million square meters of real estate. In this respect writer RBC refers to resources in the real estate market and retail segment.
Ingka is the largest retail real estate owner in Russia with 2.3 million m2. According to broadcast sources, the Swedish group is looking for buyers for its entire real estate portfolio in Russia. In addition, negotiations with several potential buyers are ongoing. However, a final decision on this issue has not been made yet. The press service of Ingka Centers (a division of the Ingka Group that manages shopping malls) said it did not comment on the rumors.
According to Mikhail Burmistrov, Managing Director of INFOLine-Analytics, the fair value of the Ingka Group portfolio is approximately $5 billion, but the company may need to make a substantial discount, which could make the final sale price about $3 billion.
Analysts thought shopping malls in Russia had become a profitable business for the Ingka group as they were not badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. However, staying on the Russian market has become risky, given the imposition of many sanctions against Russia on the backdrop of the launch of a special operation in Ukraine. However, because the group is so large, it likely won’t be able to sell all of its assets at once. The most likely solution would be to split the asset into different investors for sale.
February 16, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Viktor Evtukhov declarationThe new owners of the Russian factories of the Swedish company IKEA – Slotex JSC and Luzales LLC – will keep jobs in their production.