Zara owner Industria de Diseño Textil SA, or Inditex, has placed 14 Zara stores in Spain and two in Portugal up for sale for €400 million, Bloomberg News reported, citing an Inditex official and another source with knowledge of the matter.
The physical stores will be placed on the market through a 20-year sale-and-leaseback deal, with the buyer having an option to leave the properties after five years, according to the source. The properties marked for sale include the Zara women's store in Calle Preciados, Madrid.
The Inditex official, who did not confirm the €400 million price tag, told the media outlet that the planned divestment is part of its efforts to standardize its leasing strategy, which presently covers almost all of its stores.
The Dec. 12 report also noted that the sale of the brick-and-mortar stores was likely a result of online shopping becoming more popular in Spain, which appears to be catching up with other countries in the European region in its demand for e-commerce. Andrew Allen, Aberdeen Standard Investment's global head of real estate investment research, told Bloomberg that they are forecasting a yearly increase of 18% in online purchasing for Spain up to 2021, an estimate that outpaces the average 12% growth for the entire region.
Inditex's sales for the first half of 2017 amounted to €11.7 billion from €10.5 billion, translating to a boost of 11.5% year over year, a trend that the report noted was brought about by growth in the company's internet sales.
