Supermarket giant Lidl has settled a dispute with Cortis Group subsidiary Central Business Centres (CBC plc) over a Żebbuġ land deal.
CBC said in a statement to the market on Tuesday that it has reached an “amicable agreement” with Lidl “which officially closes the dispute” between the two companies.
The contractual dispute concerned a plot of land in Zebbug owned by CBC and which it agreed to lease out to Lidl in 2017.
Lidl developed a supermarket on that land – its 11th in Malta and Gozo – and was due to return a basement level to CBC by the of Q3 2025.
But in late December, CBC said that Lidl had failed to live up to its end of that deal despite “repeated attempts” to resolve the issue.
CBC then froze funds which Lidl had deposited as part of a works guarantee related to the project.
That move jolted Lidl into action, and just one week after CBC froze the funds, it announced a partial resolution of the dispute and said it was halting its actions against the retail giant.
On Tuesday, CBC said it considered the dispute fully resolved.
CBC plc is a sister company of the Cortis Group and focuses on managing the group’s real estate portfolio, primarily comprising of commercial and warehousing properties.
The company recently finalised the purchase of the FXB building on Mdina Road, Qormi, using money raised from a €13.5 million bond issue to complete that acquisition and repay a €3 million maturing bond and a further €3 million in unsecured callable notes it issued the previous year to finance another property acquisition in Mrieħel.
