Carrefour to acquire 127 shopping centers

French supermarket chain Carrefour has acquired a portfolio of 127

shopping malls from real estate company Klepierre for 2 billion euors, or 1.68 billion pounds, in hopes of breathing new life into its declining European hypermarkets.

The Klepierre shopping centers, located in France, Italy and Spain, will be combined with the existing 45 Carrefour centers in France worth 700 million euros to make a new group of European shopping centers.

42 percent of this new company will be owned by Carrefour and the rest will be held by investors. The new company will control 800,000 square meters of retail space and consist of 1.8 billion euros in equity, but shall also be supported by 900 million euros debt, said Carrefour in a press release earlier this week.

The transaction is expect to be finalized in the first part of 2014, after it has been approved by regulatory authorities.