Morgan Stanley Purchases Moscow’s Metropolis Mall

Morgan Stanley (MS) bought a Moscow shopping mall in the biggest acquisition of a Russian retail property, according to the New York-based bank.

A fund managed by Morgan Stanley acquired Metropolis Shopping and Entertainment Mall from Capital Partners, the Kazakh developer that opened the property in 2009, the bank said in a statement today. Morgan Stanley paid about $1.2 billion for the mall, two people familiar with the transaction said. They asked not to be identified because the terms haven’t been made public.

The deal follows Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund VII’s $1.1 billion purchase of the Galeria mall in St. Petersburg last year. That transaction contributed to an annual 4 percent Increase in Russian commercial real estate sales during the first nine months of last year, according to data compiled by Real Capital Analytics Inc.

“The acquisition of Metropolis will deliver operational synergies and strategic benefits associated with owning two prime shopping centers in Russia,” said Morgan Stanley, which described the purchase as the largest ever in the country’s commercial real estate market.

The Metropolis mall in northwest Moscow, near the main highway to the city’s airport, has 82,000 square meters of retail space and 2,900 parking spaces. The shopping center attracted about 55,000 visitors a day last year, Morgan Stanley said.

Capital Partners was advised by Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (JLL)

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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at ablackman@bloomberg.net.