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French REIT Klépierre has taken full control of the 50,000 m2 Odysseum shopping and leisure centre in Montpellier shortly after divesting four assets in Norway.

Klépierre reached an agreement in November to acquire the 50% of Odysseum it did not already own from listed French developer-investor Icade. The investment volume was not disclosed.

Opened in 2009, located just 15 minutes from Montpellier town centre and served by the city's tram network, Odysseum is an open air shopping and leisure centre houses more than 120 boutiques and restaurants over more than 50,000 m2. Klépierre was already the manager of the centre.

Icade, a subsidiary of French financial group Caisse des Dépôts, said the sale of the stake in Odysseum was part of refocusing on offices and business parks in Paris and the surrounding the Ile-de-France region.

Klépierre's strategy is to own and manage large shopping centres in metropolitan areas in Europe. The company had some €16.2 bn of assets under management across 13 Continental European countries at end-June 2013.

Klépierre holds a controlling stake in Steen & Strøm (56.1%), Scandinavia’s number one shopping centre owner and manager. Around the same time as the Odysseum transaction, Klépierre sold four malls in Norway for €247 mln to help fund Steen & Strøm's development projects in the Nordics.

The assets were acquired by Sektor Portefølje II, an investment vehicle 75% owned by Partners Group, with Sektor Gruppen controlling another 15% and Steen & Strøm retaining the remaining 10%. Steen & Strøm said its residual stake in these four centers should not be considered a long-term investment.