The owner of IKEA and Mega decided to sell all real estate in Russia
Ingka Group began searching for a buyer for more than 2 million sq. m. m of real estate in Russia, including Mega shopping centers and IKEA store areas. After the sale of the IKEA factories, this deal will mean the complete withdrawal of the group from the country.
The Swedish Ingka Group, which owns the IKEA chain of furniture and household goods stores and Mega shopping centers, has begun looking for buyers for its real estate in Russia. This was told to RBC by a source in the retail market, two sources in investment companies and a source in the real estate market.
Ingka is the largest owner of retail real estate in Russia, the total area of shopping centers owned by the company, according to INFOLine-Analytics, is 2.3 million square meters. m, rental area – 1.8 million square meters. m. The group is looking for a buyer for the entire portfolio of its real estate, RBC interlocutors say. According to them, negotiations are underway with at least two potential buyers (their names are not disclosed), but they are in the initial stage. But, as RBC’s source in the real estate market notes, the final corporate decision on the sale of these assets has not yet been made.
In response to a request from RBC, the press service of Ingka Centers (a division of the Ingka Group that manages shopping centers) said that they did not comment on market rumors. They also added that Mega continues to operate, and the company is focused on “ensuring the security of operations and the quality of customer service.” At the same time, IKEA flagship stores in these shopping centers were closed almost a year ago – in early March 2022.
How much can these assets be worth?
Ingka’s real estate portfolio in Russia includes 14 Mega shopping centers (in Moscow, Moscow region, Leningrad region, Omsk, Ufa, Rostov, Samara, Adygea, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod), hypermarkets with IKEA stores, as well as sites where construction of new shopping centers was planned but not yet started. Rental income from Ingka Centers in Russia, according to Forbes, amounted to $350 million in 2021.
