Spain mall sales may hit $1.4 bln in 2011- savills

Spanish retail property's appeal to investors will linger into late 2011, with more shopping mall assets being sold into an increasingly competitive market, potentially doubling deal volumes to about 1 billion euros ($1.43 billion), research showed.

Property consultancy Savills said Dutch, British and German funds would continue to dominate transactions, having accounted for about 90 percent of the 696 million euros deal volume in 2010.

"About 700-800 million euros is expected to be transacted (this year) but with some investment opportunities totalling 100 million euros alone, a larger total could be achieved," Savills said in a statement on Monday.

Deal volumes could rise to about 1 billion euros by the sale of two malls -- Invest Cos' Marineda City in La Coruna and Acciona's Splau in Barcelona -- that are on the market separately for a total of about 500 million euros, Savills said.

Source: Reuters.com