French investor closing in on €23m deal for Kilkenny Retail Park

Iroko Zen is closing in on the purchase of Kilkenny Retail Park from Aviva’s Irish Commercial Property Fund. The deal, which is understood to carry a value of just over €23 million, will represent the French-headquartered investor’s ninth acquisition in the Irish investment market.

Iroko Zen is said by market sources to have seen off bids from a number of parties following a competitive off-market process in which agent TWM had been seeking €22 million for the scheme. Iroko is understood to have been represented in the process by Colliers and CBRE.

Aviva secured ownership of Kilkenny Retail Park in 2018 as part of its takeover of Irish insurer Friends First. Friends First had purchased the park for €25 million in 2016.

Located in the Springhill area on the outskirts of Kilkenny City, Kilkenny Retail Park is fully occupied at present and generating overall rental income of about €2.2 million per annum from a strong tenant line-up led by DIY retail giant Woodie’s. Other occupiers at the scheme include EZ Living, DID Electrical, Harry Corry, Jysk, Costa Coffee, Petmania and KFC. The weighted average unexpired lease term (WAULT) to expiry is seven years.

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The news of Iroko Zen’s intended purchase of Kilkenny Retail Park comes just five months after it paid the Irish property investor and operator, Fine Grain Property, about €18 million for J5 Plaza, a fully let office investment at North Park Business Park in Dublin 11.

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Last September, Iroko Zen paid €9.8 million for the premises of Woodie’s on Cork Road in Waterford city. Three months earlier, it paid €4,970,840 for Westland House (Block A), a fully let three-storey office block at Westland Park in Dublin 12, while last March it paid €4.965 million for units 5A and 6 at Galway Retail Park.

In January 2023, Iroko Zen secured ownership of South Quarter Airside near Swords in north Dublin following the agreement of an €18 million deal with the Michael J Wright Group.