At the beginning of 2021, Lumi Retail Property Fund managed by Lumi Capital acquired the Jugla shopping center in Riga. For the first time in the fund's history, private investors were included in the circle of investors in addition to Swedbank's pension funds. Jugla center has a 4,500 square meter lease area and its anchor tenant is Rimi. The center also houses Lemon Gym and Pepco as well as several smaller tenants.
"The acquired center is a valuable addition and fits perfectly into our portfolio of neighborhood stores," confirms Lauri Henno, partner and fund manager at Lumi Capital. According to him, the Jugla center meets several important criteria for successful commercial real estate: good visibility and accessibility, high visitor numbers, long-term leases and a building in excellent condition - all of which support the growth of traders' business and thus increase investment return.
"The location by the city's main highway invites not only the surrounding residents but also people passing by car to shop, and therefore we see very high visitor numbers in the Jugla center," confirms Henno and says that due to the latter it is also a familiar shopping center for many Estonians. "When leaving Riga and traveling towards Tallinn, an extremely easy access is provided to the Jugla center from the highway. A stop is often made there before a long drive," confirms Henno.
In total, Lumi Retail Property Fund has six centers in its portfolio and Jugla is the fund's second investment in Riga. Following the acquisition of Jugla, the value of Latvian real estate investments is approximately half of the fund's portfolio.
"Successful transactions in Latvia confirm that we are on the right track with our trans-Baltic business strategy, and of course the fact that new private investors also see value in our growing portfolio, will undoubtedly increase confidence," says Lauri Henno.
The law firm Walless advised Lumi Capital on the transaction and the real estate was brokered by Colliers.
Lumi Retail Property Fund is a Baltic-wide real estate fund that specializes in neighborhood shopping centers close to home. The total volume of the fund's investments is planned to be 100 million euros within a timeframe of 20 years. The anchor investors of the fund are Swedbank pension funds.
