Shopping mall management company may add R$2bn in revenues

10/26/2022

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While awaiting regulatory approvals for the merger with BR Malls, shopping mall management company Alliances Sonae is accelerating other projects. Owner of extensive areas around some of its 27 malls, the company has defined a strategic plan for the 4.4 million square meters of its own land portfolio.

Aliansce segregated the future expansion area from the malls and decided that 2.3 million square meters will be used in multi-use real estate projects — corporate buildings, residential, hotels, hospitals, and schools.

The company is already implementing six of the so-called mini neighborhoods, which total 35 towers and are expected to be completed in four years. With a total potential sales value of R$1.8 billion, those initial projects have less than 300,000 square meters — so there are more than 2 million square meters still to be planned.

Mario Oliveira — Foto: Divulgação

As the company had to install water, sewage, and power services in many of the lots, it is based on those facilities that the company makes the surrounding area feasible. “In Maceió, we closed a deal with healthcare company Unimed to build a hospital and, incredible as it may seem, it was one of the few plots of land in the city with water and sewage,” said Mario Oliveira, the Portuguese from Porto who is director of new business and M&A at Aliansce Sonae.

“The vision of the masterplan is sustainable: it’s to be a mini neighborhood where you can do everything using the car as little as possible. You can go by bike or on foot from home or hotel to work, to the mall, to class,” he added.

Eight projects are under construction, including a hospital and six residential towers in Maceió, as well as a hotel in Uberlândia (Minas Gerais). Besides the launching of three residential towers in Goiânia, the city hall is approving the project for 14 buildings at Via Parque Shopping, in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro.

According to the executive, Aliansce’s investment in these launches is “virtually zero,” since the company has already invested in the infrastructure of the areas at the time of construction of the malls and the new buildings are the responsibility of the developer partners.

The company has cut different deals according to each project. In the case of Unimed, Aliansce sold the land to the doctors’ cooperative, but it has done barter with developers in the buildings, in which it establishes a minimum payment and has an upside according to the total effective sales price.

“We profit on the financial side since the real estate development is on land that is not being used today and, therefore, does not generate any remuneration for the company. We also gain public in our primary mall area,” said Mr. Oliveira.

In Salvador, for example, with 2,600 residential units and an estimated 2,500 people in the corporate buildings, the estimate is of a monthly impact of 60,000 people in the mall, given the recurrence of this customer — for shopping or for a cup of coffee.

“Today the financial market assigns zero value to this in our share, a financial contribution that will appear with time on the financial statement,” the executive said. Aliansce is currently worth R$5.55 billion on the stock exchange — BR Malls, with which it will merge, has a market capitalization of R$8.18 billion.

*By Maria Luíza Filgueiras — São Paulo

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/