French fund buys shopping centre for a song

The French real estate fund manager, Sogenial Immobilier, has acquired the shopping centre Vida Ovar that cost €33 million in 2007 for €22 million.

Vida Ovar was born out of Portugal’s shopping centres bubble that occurred at the start of the economic crisis (2007-2014) when a host of shopping centres that had sprung up since the millennium failed as the recession bit hard.

Vida Ovar had been part of the collapsed shopping centres chain Dolce Vita. It has now been acquired by the French fund from White Sand Capital Portugal, an equity company linked to an international group held by entrepreneur Paulo Friedlander.

Opened in April 2007 in a €33 million investment, the Dolce Vita Ovar was a project from the Spanish group Charmartín which in the previous year had acquired the real estate holdings owned by the Amorim Group, including its chain of Dolce Vita shopping centres for €500 million.