IMMOEAST has concluded its largest ever single transaction. The contract governing the purchase of the GoodZone shopping center in Moscow was recently signed, the company reported.

With total floor space of 146,000 m², GoodZone is amongst the largest retail projects in the city of Moscow. The top quality shopping center will house a total of 180 retail outlets, restaurants and service providers as well as a spacious leisure center. Investment in the project will total around €450 million.

The GoodZone shopping center.GoodZone is viewed by experts as one of the most promising shopping centers in Moscow. The center is located at the intersection of two major road axes with the ring motorway around Moscow (4th Ring), and is thus perfectly situated along important transport routes. US architecture firm Altoon & Porter, a leading international specialist for shopping centers, is responsible for the planning and design.

IMMOEAST has preliminarily acquired a 75% stake. The remaining quarter will be purchased upon completion in autumn 2008. The seller is an experienced developer with which IMMOEAST has had a long history of cooperation, and from whom the (fully let) 5th Avenue shopping center was purchased. Work on the GoodZone foundations has already been fully completed and construction is currently under way on the upper stories. Completion is scheduled for November 2008, and interest from international retail companies is already extremely high; negotiations have reached an advanced stage with a large number of potential tenants.

“The retail sector in Moscow is currently one of the most interesting markets in the East,” says IMMOEAST CEO Karl Petrikovics. “Strongly rising purchasing power in the Russian capital and its outlying areas has led to a rapid increase in demand for modern retail space. There are practically no international retail chains that are not investing massively in Moscow. Consequently, vacancy rates are minimal and rents easily match the levels in most major cities in the West.”

IMMOEAST's portfolio in Moscow currently includes five shopping centers (both completed and in development), with total floor space of 410,000 m².

In total, the enterprise's Russian portfolio consists of 17 properties with 753,000 m² of floor space. This figure also includes indirect investments via associate companies TriGránit, EPH and FF&P.

IMMOEAST will implement a comprehensive investment programme in the 2007/08 business year (1 May 2007 – 30 April 2008), with total investments of €6 billion. Three billion of this sum had already been invested by the end of July 2007.