British investors buying Helsinki's new downtown Kamppi Center

SRV Yhtiöt Oyj announced on Wednesday that together with its sister company Pontos, it has sold Helsinki's new downtown commercial and residential complex Kamppi Center to the British property company Boultbee and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for EUR 345 million.
     
After the transaction Boultbee will own roughly 80 percent of Kamppi, Helsinki's newest shopping mall, with RBS owning the remainder.
      The Boultbee Group also owns nine shopping centres in Sweden and nine in the UK, and manages a further eight in the UK.
      "With the strength of its location, and our ability to deliver the best retail mix in Helsinki, we firmly believe we can keep the Kamppi Center at the top of the retail hierarchy", notes David Revill, the Chairman of the Board of Boultbee. He also says that the underground bus and coach terminals are bound to attract thousands of potential customers, as half a million commuters a week walk through the centre.
      In addition to Finland, Boultbee is interested in expanding its retail operations to the Baltic as well as to other European markets, according to Revill.
      The Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS, is one of the world's leading financial services groups, with a Nordic presence since 2004. RBS offers corporations, financial institutions and public parties a broad range of financing and risk management products.
     
For Pontos, who owned 70 percent of the shares, the Kamppi Center was a notable investment. "However, the holding in Kamppi became over-pronounced in our portfolio and therefore the sale was in line with our strategy", says Managing Director Tomi Vannas of Pontos.
      "Kamppi is in a phase in its life cycle where it will benefit from a strong shopping center operator-owner", Vannas concludes.
     
For SRV, the Kamppi Center was a four-year construction project, involving the extensive redevelopment of the Kamppi district in downtown Helsinki.
      "The transaction has a considerable influence on SRV's operations, since it concludes the Kamppi project for us and we can now concentrate on new projects", reports Vice Managing Director Timo Nieminen from SRV Yhtiöt.
      However, SRV is not to give up the Kamppi Center entirely. It will expand the Kamppi Park and remains the owner of the Kamppi office properties for the time being.
      According to an earlier agreement, the Managing Director of the Kamppi Center, Henrik Winberg, is to leave the company at his own request. Tuomas Sahi has been appointed the new Managing Director.
     
The newest part of the Kamppi Center opened in early March. During the first month of operation the complex was visited by more than three million people, tallying about EUR 20 million in sales. The Kamppi commercial centre is providing 35,000 square metres of floor space to over 150 businesses. In addition to the shopping mall, Kamppi has two public bus terminals, parking for 250 cars, a new entrance to the underground, and offices and apartments, as well as wide open areas with a market square and a park.
      The shops and restaurants on the market square level, as well as the terminals for Espoo buses and long-distance coaches, opened already in June 2005.
     
Foreign investors have been interested also in some other shopping malls in the Greater Helsinki area, having stakes in the major commercial centres in Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kamppi Center ready to open all shops in downtown Helsinki tomorrow (1.3.2006)

Links:
  Kamppi Center
  SRV Group
  Pontos Group
  Boultbee
  The Royal Bank of Scotland