South African investment fund New Europe Property Investments [NEPI], mainly focused on Romania, has announced that it took over the City Park shopping mall in Constanta for EUR 81mn, Ziarul Financiar daily reads.

The price of the deal results in an annual yield of 9% for the NEPI investment in the shopping mall located in the main Romanian city on the Black Sea coast.

The mall was developed by the Israeli Neocity company under a EUR 48.5mn loan from Bancpost [Eurobank group] and Banca Romaneasca [National Bank of Greece group]. NEPI will fully pay back the loan to the two banks.

NEPI issued new shares and increased its capital by nearly EUR 50mn in November. The capital increase exceeded the target, which was initially set at EUR 35mn. The new funding was meant to be used to finance potential investment projects – specifically three projects with a total value of EUR 170mn, the fund has said. Some of the three projects envisaged by NEPI might be completed before the 2013 financial results are released, it added.

One of the three projects is a commercial centre in Romania – located in a major city outside the capital Bucharest, most likely this is the Constanta City Park. The second one is for a commercial centre in another East European capital. Finally, the third project is a plot of land aimed also to be developed into a commercial centre in a location that was not revealed.