Amazons Australian retail arrival puts end to sale of Blackstones malls
- Tuesday, September 5th, 2017
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Private equity giant Blackstone Group, which is the parent company of The Weather Channel, Micheals malls, Hilton Worldwide and Merlin Entertainment, has decided against selling its Australian shopping mall portfolio.
According Reuters, citing a source, Blackstone has decided to call off the Aus$3.5bn (£2.15bn) sale as interest faded due to Amazon’s rising retail presence putting off the buyers of brick-and-mortar stores.
Blackstone, after receiving no interest in the entire 10-mall package, has chosen to instead renovate its collection of malls mainly situated in Sydney and Melbourne. 
“They had strong offers, but only for individual assets, not for the whole 10 (malls). There’s been a hit on retail-sector sentiment because of the emergence of Amazon,” said the source.
Amazon has yet to lay out its retail plans for Australia, but the knowledge of its impending arrival has been enough to stop buyers taking the risk on retail projects for the time being.
