Owner of City Mall Bucharest applies for insolvency

Victoria Holding, the owner of City Mall Bucharest, has applied to enter insolvency proceedings after company shareholders announced they were having difficulties in paying back EUR 40 million of credit taken out from Bank Austria, Mediafax has reported.

Victoria Holdings is the fund through which the Australian investment fund APN European Retail Trust owns City Mall. APN European Retail Trust bought the facility in 2006 for EUR 103.5 million. In the middle of this year, the mall was evaluated at EUR 35.4 million. In H1 2010, APN European Retail Trust reported revenues of EUR 308,000 from renting City Mall Bucharest, ten times less than in the same period of last year.