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As essential businesses, grocery stores stayed open during the pandemic and some even chalked up a record sales volume, in contrast to many malls and other retail locations that remained closed for months.
Investors are now showing they learned a lot from that experience. Grocery-anchored shopping centers are attracting strong interest and high prices, while malls and other forms of retail have been sidelined.
In the latest example of the strong sales market, real-estate investment company BentallGreenOak has attracted investor interest by marketing a portfolio of 10 shopping centers in such cities as Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas, according to people familiar with the matter. The price could be as high as $450 million, people said.
Such a price would be comparable or even more than what the portfolio would have sold for before the pandemic, according to brokers and investors. Big investors such as Starwood Capital Group and Brixmor Property Group have been considering putting in bids for this portfolio, the people said.
In April, Kimco Realty Corp. agreed to acquire Houston-based Weingarten Realty Investors for nearly $3.9 billion in cash and stock to boost its presence in the Sunbelt region. Analysts said that the price in that deal also was a sign that grocery-anchored shopping centers are one of the few categories of retail property attractive to investors.
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