Fewer shopping centre deals in 2012 – Cushman & Wakefield
The amount of UK shopping centre investment transactions completed during Q4 2012 is estimated at £1.17bn, taking into account projections for the final few days of last year, says Cushman & Wakefield. This would take the full-year total to £2.63bn, which would be down 28% on the previous year’s £3.69bn.
Cushman & Wakefield calculates that there were 33 transactions last year, following 52 deals in 2011. But it notes that there was an increasing amount of prime retail stock on the market during the final quarter of 2012, which was matched “by an improved depth of demand for prime shopping centres from real estate investment trusts (REITs), institutional investors and opportunity funds”.
The most significant deal in Q4 was the acquisition by Norges of 50% of the 1.37m sq ft Meadowhall shopping centre near Sheffield for £750m. This was followed by the sale of Festival Place in Basingstoke to Teachers for £279m, Hermes’ purchase of centres in Tunbridge Wells, Guildford and Belfast for £190m, and Oaktree’s £130m buy of the Kingfisher centre in Redditch, C&W says.
The last quarter saw two forward funding deals exchange – the British Land acquisition of The Old Livestock Market in Hereford, and the £200m purchase of Westfield Broadway by Meyer Bergman. “Other notable transactions in the final few months of 2012 included the purchase of The Lanes in Carlisle by F&C Reit for £65m and Benson Elliot agreeing to buy The Arcadia Centre in Ealing for £38m,” the firm notes. There are also three schemes in the Grosvenor portfolio under offer, in Burton on Trent, Grimsby and Inverness.
In addition, C&W notes, Airedale Shopping Centre in Keighley (£26.6m), Cathedral Plaza in Worcester (£27m), and The Menai Centre in Bangor (£15.35m) have also been marketed and are now under offer along with Bath‘s SouthGate complex. Great Northern Quarter in Manchester is also up for sale but not currently under offer, the firm says.
C&W is seeing investment demand from all over the world for prime UK shopping centre assets, says Charlie Barke, head of shopping centre investment at C&W. “The secondary market is likely to remain more challenging but there will certainly be some interesting investment opportunities for the well advised investor in 2013,” he adds.
