First Capital Realty's $46M acquisition of the retail component of False Creek Village, which we reported on before Christmas, is an atypical case study of where the company sees itself growing across the country going in 2014. EVP and CFO Karen Weaver tells us "It's rare where we find those types of assets...that we want to own because it's the right addition to our portfolio in terms of quality and location. These kind of assets rarely trade," she says. First Capital's core business is grocery-anchored urban shopping centres.
Their concentration in terms of investment and growth is in intensifying existing assets in part by recycling capital by disposing of assets in other markets. Which is the same as saying that the company has nothing else that is imminent in terms of acquisitions in the city. "Vancouver is a very interesting market, difficult to make money in," Karen tells us. First Capital first entered the Vancouver market 10 years ago (they now own 164 properties in seven urban markets). "But we told ourselves if we want to be a Canadian company we wanted to be there.
