Land Securities has exchanged contracts for the sale of the Stratford shopping centre in East London to the Catalyst European Property Fund for £91.55m. The price represents a net initial yield to the purchaser of 7.25 per cent

On behalf of the St James’s Place Property Unit Trust, Invista Real Estate Investment Management has acquired Westhill Shopping Centre, Aberdeen, from Gladedale Capital for £9.25m, representing a net initial yield of 7.2 per cent

PRUPIM has sold the Bridgend Retail Park in South Wales to the BA Pension Fund for £18.85m. The sale reflects a net initial yield of 6.6 per cent.

LaSalle Investment Management has completed a major refurbishment which has transformed the Lion Walk shopping centre in Colchester

Yields for prime assets improved to 5.5 per cent over the second quarter of 2010, reflecting the fact that shopping centre stock has been relatively limited. Yields for smaller and more secondary assets have remained relatively static with vacancy rates and falling rents continuing to suppress values.

Stephen Springham, head of retail research at King Sturge, reports that the shopping centre market has seen significantly higher volumes of transactions due to the hardening of pricing, which, in turn, has allowed a number of investors to exit with a profit. However, the activity has primarily been confined to the prime/good secondary end of the market.

Three shopping centres owned by the Reuben Brothers and Lloyds Banking Group have gone into administration.

Two subsidiaries of Modus Properties, the owner of the Grand Arcade shopping centre in Wigan that was placed in administration last year, have successfully negotiated CVAs with their creditors, clearing the way for the sale of the centre.

Henderson Global Investors has paid £5.7 m for a retail warehouse unit in Berry Lane, Halifax, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.65 per cent.

Capital Shopping Centres, recently demerged from Liberty International, saw a strong rebound in property valuations during the first half of 2010

Metric Property Investments has made its second acquisition since floating in March this year, buying the Launceston Retail Park in Cornwall for £13.5m, reflecting an initial yield of 5.86 per cent.

Property veterans Raymond Mould and Patrick Vaughan, founders of Arlington Securities and Pillar Property, are returning to the London Stock Exchange as their new vehicle London & Stamford Property converts to REIT status.

The Henderson Retail Warehouse Fund has sold a 25 per cent stake in the Brewery in Romford to Prupim for £44.25m, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.06 per cent.

Prime yields on shopping centre investments fell in the second quarter of 2010, as investment demand exceeding supply, according to Cushman & Wakefield

The first of 2010 saw more shopping centre investment deals than the whole of 2009, according to Knight Frank

Evidence of a slowdown in the recovery of retail property markets is becoming increasingly apparent. According to IPD’s Monthly Market Segments, capital value growth across all retail property segments in May was just 0.52 per cent, the lowest rate of monthly growth since August 2009.

North London retail and leisure centre sold to German investors

Recently-floated developer LXB Retail goes back to market for £40m more to fund more deals

Mayfair Capital Investment Management’s Property Income Trust for Charities has bought the Debenhams’ Department Store in Southport for £8.3m.

Investment in UK retail property reached £3.7bn in the first six months of 2010, according to CBRE

LXB Retail announces has bought two further retail sites in Greenwich from Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust for £21.24m.

Hammerson has bought out and Brookfield Europe's stake in the £4.5bn Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration project in North London

The Mall Fund has continued its disposals programme with the sale of centres in Gloucester, Southampton, Romford and Falkirk to Rockspring for £136m.

Shopping centres are predicted to be the worst-performing property sub-sector for the next two years according to Colliers' authoritative Midsummer Retail Report.

Legal & General Property has acquired two retail/leisure schemes with development potential in Hounslow and Trowbridge for £43m

Hammerson has bought the remaining 75 per cent stake in the 140,000-sq ft Battery Retail Park in Birmingham from TIAA-CREF for £49.5m.

Land Securities has pre-sold its Park Place mixed-use development on London's Oxford Street to Barwa Real Estate for £250m

Metric Property Investments, the recently-floated specialist retail REIT, has made its its first acquisition with the £28.4m purchase of Damolly Retail Park, Newry, Northern.

Meyer Bergman has bought The Exchange Shopping Centre, Ilford, from the Mall Fund for around £71m, representing a net initial yield in excess of 8.2 per cent.

According to new research from Savills, retail warehousing delivered a 20 per cent total return in the year to February 2010. This is a dramatic turnaround from a total annual return of minus 28 per cent just 10 months previously.

PGGM, a leading Dutch pension fund and asset manager, has invested around €75m in Standard Life Investments UK Shopping Centre Trust.

NewRiver Retail has bought a portfolio of six long leasehold sites from Redevco for £19.01m, reflecting a net initial yield of 7.75 per cent.

A pension fund client of Colliers Capital has bought a 51,530-sq ft Morrisons store on the Castleton Retail Park in Dover for £17.26m, reflecting a net initial yield of 5 per cent.

DTZ Investment Management has purchased the mixed-use Cobalt portfolio from Wellcome Trust for £93.5m. The price reflects a net yield of 6.1 per cent.

In one of the UK's first car park investment deals Bouwfonds European Real Estate Parking Fund is to forward purchase Merepark and Ballymore's multi-storey car park at their Central Village mixed-use development in Liverpool.

CACI's annual ranking of the UK’s top retail destinations underlines strength in Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle but more difficult times for Leeds and Birmingham.

Columbus UK Real Estate Fund and Chester Properties Investment Partnership have formed a new joint venture to acquire The Brandon Shopping Centre in Motherwell.

Capital & Regional, manager of the Mall, Junction and X-Leisure funds, is continuing to sell properties according to its latest interim management statement.

An improving retail backdrop is leading Land Securities to dust off mothballed retail developments.

The latest IPD figures show the market is still moving forward, but at a slower rate.

The rebound in commercial property valuations helped stem losses at British Land in the year to 31 March 2010, and the company is cautiously optimistic about the retail sector for this year.

NewRiver Retail Investments, the co-investment joint venture between NewRiver Capital and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, has completed the acquisition of Albert Square Shopping Centre in Widnes.

Invista Real Estate Investment Management has announced a commitment to the forward funding of a retail warehouse development in Guildford. The site is being developed by Travis Perkins (Properties) Limited (TPP) on behalf of Travis Perkins Plc (TP) and has been pre-let to a TP group company – Wickes Building Supplies Limited – for 25 years.

Invista Real Estate Investment Management has agreed to forward fund a retail warehouse development in Guildford, which Travis Perkins is developing with a new Wickes store.

Rockspring has bought the St Tydfil Square Shopping Centre in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, for £24m. The sale price reflects a yield of more than 9.25 per cent.

As it prepares for its demerger from Liberty International, Capital Shopping Centres has reported strong performance in the first quarter of 2010.

Land Securities has today has bought a 50 per cent stake in the Westgate Centre, Oxford from The Crown Estate for just over £28m representing a yield of 6.75 per cent. The property will be jointly held in a new limited partnership.

Shopping centre investor London & Associated Properties reported an improved set of results for the year to 31 December 2009.

Hammerson has reported an improving picture at its UK malls in a management update for the first quarter of 2010.

SpaceandPeople has announced today it will acquire Retail Profile, the UK's leading provider of Retail Merchandising Units (RMUs) for £6.3m, subject to shareholder approval.

Insolvency rates in the UK rose between February and March this year but overall figures are down compared to 2009, according to Experian.

The Junction, Capital & Regional's retail park fund, has continued its disposals programme with the sale of the 200,000-sq ft Cambridge Close Retail Park in Aylesbury.

Standard Life Investments Property Income Trust has bought a 41,280-sq ft retail warehouse in Bury, Greater Manchester for £5.3m.

Metric Property Investments, a specialist retail property investor formed by three ex-British Land directors, has raised £190m by becoming the first REIT to float on the London Stock Exchange since the crash.

Demand for shopping centre investments is forecast to continue improving, with UK funds leading the way, forecasts Knight Frank.

Land Securities has completed the off market purchase of The O2 Centre, Finchley Road, London NW3 from the Matterhorn Palos Partnership, for £125.9m representing a yield of 6 per cent.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council exchanged contracts yesterday to buy The Malls shopping centre from co-owner Key Property Investments (KPI), a joint venture between St. Modwen Properties plc and Salhia Real Estate Company. The council is purchasing the property company's 65 per cent share, and becoming the sole owner of the town's shopping centre.

Henderson Global Investors’ Retail Warehouse Fund has sold its Junction 27 Retail Park in Leeds to The UK Commercial Property Trust for £56.63m, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.15 per cent.

The rebound in the UK retail investment market is expected to maintain momentum throughout the first half of 2010 according to latest research from CB Richard Ellis.

Treasury's UK arm, Real Estate Opportunities, has appointed Cushman & Wakefield to secure funding for the redevelopment of London' Battersea Power Station.

Metric Property, the new property company set up by three former British Land directors, has completed its fund raising and beaten its target, raising £175 from investors.

Cordea Savills, the international property fund manager, has acquired the Apex Retail Park in Twickenham for £14.4m on behalf of the Charities Property Fund.

A 28 per cent decline on new shopping centre space across Europe in 2009 brought an end to three consecutive years of development growth, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.

Thornfield Properties will go into administration this week following the demise of parent company Thornfield Ventures earlier this year.

The recovery in retail property investment markets continued in January, albeit at a more pedestrian rate than the closing months of 2009. IPD data shows capital values for all retail increased by 1.03 per cent in January, the slowest monthly rate of growth since August 2009.

A concept first put forward by The Peel Group, owners of The Trafford Centre, for the regeneration of the North West ship canal corridor has today been taken forward.

Centros has acquired the ailing 1960s-built Tower Centre in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, from UBS.

Liberty International has confirmed that it is to split into two separate quoted companies – Capital Shopping Centres and Capital & Counties.

Metric Property Investments, a specialist retail property investor formed by three ex-British Land directors, is to raise £150m by floating on the London Stock Exchange.

Capital & Regional, asset manager of the Mall Fund, has completed the sale of the St George's Shopping Centre in Preston to Aviva Investors Property Trust for £87m reflecting an initial yield of 7.64 per cent.

Dutch property investor Meyer Bergman has acquired a 50 per cent stake in The Bentall Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames, from Aviva for around £130m.

Herald, Henderson Global Investors’ €900m pan-European retail property fund, has sold the Stanley Green retail park in Wilmslow, Manchester, to PruPIM for £47m reflecting a net initial yield of 5.3 per cent.

Specialist retail investor NewRiver has set up a £250m fund with Morgan Stanley to buy UK retail property, and it has kicked off the business with a £49m portfolio purchase from UBS.

Scarborough Development Group has bought eight Modus Group property companies out of administration for £37m.

Centros has been selected by Anglo Irish Bank to asset manage the 400,000-sq ft Houndshill Shopping Centre in Blackpool.

The Mall fund has sold its Aberdeen Shopping Centre to a client of Rockspring Property Investment Managers for £47.4m reflecting an initial yield of 7.9 per cent.

Woking Borough Council has bought out IM Properties' lease on the 230,000-sq ft Wolsey Place shopping centre in a £68m deal.

Hammerson's UK retail holdings contributed to an improved performance at the Anglo-French REIT. The pre-tax loss for the year ended 31 December 2009 was £453.1m, down from £1,611.5m in 2008.

Standard Life Investments has bought the East Kilbride Retail Park on behalf of Standard Life Investments’ UK Property Fund, for £18.145m reflecting a yield of 6.54 per cent.

Retail is tipped to be the top-performing property sector in the UK, according to a new economic forecast from BNP Paribas Real Estate.

British Land unveiled a strong set of third-quarter results, driven in part by the revival in the out-of-town retail market.

The Crown Estate has continued its push into the shopping centre sector, exchanging contracts with Capital Shopping Centres to buy the Westgate Shopping Centre in Oxford

Liberty International, parent company of Capital Shopping Centres and Capital & Counties, has confirmed that it is considering floating the two as separate businesses.

British Land has increased its exposure to the foodstore sector, buying the freehold of a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Macclesfield, Cheshire, for £30.5m, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.0 per cent.

St Modwen Investments has exchanged contracts to sell its Catford shopping centre in south-east London to Lewisham Council for £11.52m. A new regeneration body is to be set up to take over the running of the centre.

Almost half the shopping centre investment deals completed in the past five years risk unravelling because the purchasers cannot service their loans, according to new research from DTZ and the BCSC. In all £10.1bn of deals could go bad.

Land Securities and Henderson's plans for a major extension to the Buchanan Galleries centre in Glasgow have moved a step closer with the city council's decision to back an application for Tax Increment Funding to support the project.

Capital Shopping Centres has successfully refinanced its flagship asset, the 1.4m-sq ft Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock. A consortium of seven banks has advanced a new seven-year, £525m loan.