Cora invests in malls when real estate developers are coping with insolvencies

Cora French retailer, present domestically with five hypermarkets, will enter the mall segment by launching Corall project of Constanţa in the second half of 2012, in the wake of 100m-euro investments.
The next two mall projects of French Louis Delhaize, Cora's shareholders, will be built in Braşov and Bacău, but no completion date has been specified. Cora thus becomes the first food retail player to rival mall developers, a market of over 50 shopping centres.
"The next two malls will be built in Braşov and Bacău. We already have the land, we're waiting for the construction permit," stated Philippe Lejeunne, 55, general manager of Cora Romania.
The first mall Cora is set to open in Romania, the one of Constanţa, will have a 150,000 square metre total area. Cora hypermarket of this mall will have an 8,500 square metre area. Around a quarter of the mall's total area will be used for the entertainment section, while in the rest of shopping centres this section takes below 20% of the area, according to the representatives of CB Richard Ellis real estate consultancy, the project rental agent.
Lejeunne expects to break even with this mall in seven or eight years. As for funding, he says the money for all the projects comes from France, from the parent company.