Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust (Crombie REIT) has announced it will buy 68 Safeway outlets across Western Canada in a sale-lease-back deal with Empire Company Ltd., parent of Sobeys Inc., Canada’s second-largest grocer.
In early June, Empire signed an agreement to buy more than 200 grocery stores from Canada Safeway Ltd. in a $5.8 billion deal. At the time, it said that it intended to finance the acquisition with a $1 billion sale-lease-back.
“We are pleased to announce this sale leaseback transaction between Sobeys and Crombie REIT,” said Empire president and chief executive Paul Sobey.
Empire created Crombie REIT in 2006.
The properties in the deal total three million square feet of gross leasable area and include 49 freestanding stores and 19 retail plazas, each anchored by a Canada Safeway grocery store. There are 29 properties in B.C., 27 in Alberta, three in Saskatchewan and nine in Manitoba.
