French investment fund buys Aldi store in east Cork

The Aldi store in Carrigtwohill has been acquired by Corum.

A French investment fund, which has so far spent more than €200m on Irish properties, has completed the acquisition of an Aldi store in east Cork’s Carrigtwohill from BAM Property, for €5.6m.

The investment sale to the French company Corum, which was agreed at the end of 2019, has now closed out, at a time when the Irish supermarket trade is exceptionally strong thanks to the stay-home impact of the cononavirus and a sales surge from home shoppers.

Carrigtwohill’s Aldi store went to market last year with a €7m price expectation, thanks to a €451,000 rent roll from the German discount retailer, who occupy on a 25-year lease from 2008.

The purpose-built Aldi property of over 17,000 sq ft anchors the Castlesquare Shopping Centre in Carrigtwohill, part of a major joint mixed-use scheme started in the early 2000s by BAM and Gable Holdings, delivered with many hundreds of houses and apartments.

The sale of the BAM Property asset to Corum was handled by agent Cearbhall Behan of Behan Irwin & Gosling/Downing Commercial in Cork, with Aoife Murray of Colliers in Dublin acting for the purchaser.

With 11,300 stores globally, and turnover of €50bn, Aldi is heading up to 140 Irish stores, and has traded in Ireland since 1999.

It has been leasing its Carrigtwohill outlet on a 25-year lease from January 2008. Adjoining occupiers include a Primary Care Centre, above the Aldi, and a café within the centre.

At the sale price of around €5.6m, it represents a return of 7.34% net yield for the active French purchaser, a better return than the proposed 6.45% at the initial €7m guide on the investment’s launch.