A company from Dragon Capital Group – which belongs to Czech entrepreneur Tomas Fiala – seems likely to buy Karavan Outlet, one of Kyiv’s oldest shopping malls.

The Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMKU) gave permission for the Dragon Capital company to buy 50% of the company owning the shopping mall. 

That company belongs to Kharkiv-based Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksandr Yaroslavskyy. It very likely means Fiala intends to buy Karavan Outlet. 

The AMKU issued permission for Fiala’s LLC “DC Kyiv Outlet” and Yaroslavskyy’s “Trade Solutions” LLC to close the deal, one of the final steps for a purchase to be made. 

Dragon Capital has retained its position as Ukraine’s largest rentier through the full-scale invasion, despite the company selling at least four assets over the last 2.5 years, including two business centers in Kyiv and two warehouses in the Kyiv region, Forbes reported.

One of the warehouses sold was a 100,000-square-meter (1-million-square-feet) commercial property with offices and adjoining land near the village of Stoyanka, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) outside of Kyiv. 

The deal might signal a shift that Dragon capital is ready to buy again. 

Karavan Outlet would be Dragon’s sixth shopping mall. In Kyiv, it already owns Aladdin, Smart Plaza Obolon, and Piramida. In Vinnytsa, it owns SkyPark. And in Lviv, it owns Victoria Gardens.

Smart Plaza Obolon, owned by Tomash Fiala’s Dragon Capital Group. Source: Booking.com

What is Karavan Outlet? 

Karavan Outlet is a part of the Karavan shopping mall network, “Karavan Megastore,” which has been owned by Yaroslavskyy since 2013. 

The first ever Kyiv shopping malls, Globus and Metrograd, both opened in 2001. 

Karavan, along with Magellan, Rhythm, and Ukraina were opened in 2003, in a wave of shopping mall openings Kyiv Shevchenko university professor Natalia Mezentseva writes. 

Karavan Megastore includes three shopping malls in Kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv with a total area of 250,000 square meters (2,690,975 square feet).

However, Karavan in Kharkiv stopped working after it was hit by Russian artillery strikes.

The damages caused by the Russian artillery strike on the Karavan shopping mall in Kharkiv. Source: Kharkiv prosecutor’s office. 

Since Karavan Outlet in Kyiv is 21 years old and by this time a lot of other, newer shopping malls have opened, Yaroslavskyy decided to change the shopping mall’s format to an outlet mall. 

Forbes wrote that 96% of Karavans in Kyiv and Dnipro are occupied by leaseholders. 

Concorde Capital estimated that buying Karavan would cost Fiala $80-120 million, but Forbes Ukraine estimated a more modest price of $40-60 million. 

According to the unnamed top manager asked by Forbes, Karavan earns about $6-7 million per year on leasing. 

Since AMCU gave the permission to buy only 50% of the shopping mall’s ownership, Yaroskavskyy could remain as co-owner of Karavan in Kyiv.