Property: in Italia, sales with lease-back arrangements are worth over 1.3 billion from 2021

Selling a business property to a specialist investor who, at the same time, leases it back in order to continue using it. As a means of debt reduction, the sale and leaseback is increasingly providing immediate liquidity for investment, research and technological and energy innovation.
The SDA Bocconi database – which records publicly announced sale and leaseback property transactions in Italia between 2021 and the present – contains 15 transactions involving 90 properties, with a total value exceeding 1.35 billion, in addition to the undisclosed value in six of these transactions. This sample allows us to identify some significant trends.
‘Analysis of corporate disclosures,’ explains Giacomo Morri, professor of property finance at SDA Bocconi and partner at Andersen Italia, ‘shows that sale and leaseback transactions are increasingly being used not only to reduce debt, but also to finance growth programmes: industrial investments, acquisitions, expansion of production capacity, research and development, technological innovation and the energy transition. Property is therefore regarded as an alternative source of capital to be reinvested in the business rather than an asset that must necessarily be owned.”
In terms of value, the market remains driven by the retail sector, which accounts for around 60 per cent of the total, but the weight of industrial and logistics properties is far from marginal: they make up over two-thirds of the total declared floor area. “In these cases,” adds Morri, “the investor assesses not only the quality of the property, but also the financial strength of the company, the sustainability of the business model and the duration of the cash flows generated by the lease.”
Finally, there is the diversity of the companies involved. Whilst the sample includes large groups such as Fedrigoni and Coop Alleanza 3.0, it also comprises smaller firms such as Vincenzo Zucchi and Gruppo Amapa. “This suggests that the sale and leaseback is gradually moving beyond the realm of transactions typically carried out by large corporations to become established amongst medium-sized manufacturing firms as well, which use the capital tied up in their operational assets as an alternative source of financing for growth and investment. For decades, property ownership has been perceived as a natural component of a company’s financial strength. Today, in an environment characterised by increasing competition, the need to invest in innovation and a focus on capital efficiency, it may be worth questioning the role that real estate plays within a company’s strategy”.
Naturally, the sale and leaseback is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each transaction must be assessed by considering the cost of the lease, the duration of the commitments undertaken and the available financing alternatives.
However, Morri concludes, “in a context where the investments needed to sustain growth and competitiveness are tending to rise and bank lending is becoming increasingly selective, particularly towards SMEs, this arrangement also allows a company to delay or prepare for the entry of a private equity fund – which is notoriously uninterested in corporate property – thereby making the company more transparent and better focused on its core business. The separation of real estate assets from operational activities makes it possible to present the company as a more ‘asset-light’ industrial platform’.
According to Colliers’ Corporate Capital Report H1, in the first half of 2025, in Europe, the volume of sale & leaseback transactions in Europe recorded a slight increase of 5 per cent compared with the strong second half of 2024, reaching nearly 2 billion. In 2025 – pending final figures – it is estimated to have reached at least 4 billion.