MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Gazprombank has closed the transaction on purchase of Mega chain of shopping malls in Russia from the Swedish Ingka Centres (the structure that previously owned and managed IKEA and Mega shopping malls in Russia), a source in the press service of the credit organization told TASS.

"Gazprombank Group has become the owner of Mega chain of shopping malls in Russia with a total area of 2.3 mln square meters as it purchased them from Ingka Centres. The transaction includes 14 Mega shopping malls (in Moscow, the Moscow Region, the Leningrad Region, Omsk, Ufa, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Adygea, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod). The details of the transaction are not disclosed," the bank’s press service said.

The Swedish Ingka Group includes three business areas: Ikea Retail with 392 Ikea stores in 32 markets, Ingka Centers (in Russia represented by Mega shopping malls) and Ingka Investments. Ikea stores worked in Russia within Mega shopping malls. Ikea announced suspension of business processes in Russia and Belarus in early March 2022.