Crown commits £150m to retail warehousing
Published: 06 October, 2010
The Crown Estate has bought two retail parks in Liverpool and Nottingham for a combined £150m.
The Aintree Retail Park in Liverpool was purchased from London and Stamford for £101.5 m. It provides 300,000 sq ft of retail space with tenants including M&S, Boots, Next, Best Buy, B&Q and Halfords. And the Victoria Retail Park in Nottingham was purchased for about £57m. It comprises 180,000 sq ft of retail space with tenants including Next, Tesco Homeplus, Pets at Home, Boots and Argos.
The purchase of these two retail parks is part of the Crown Estate’s policy of diversifying away from its core holdings and it has now bought nine retail parks and three shopping centres with a total value of £870m. These include the purchase of a 50 per cent interest in the Princesshay shopping centre, Exeter; Queensgate Centre in Harlow; Westgate Centre in Oxford and the Bath Road Retail Park in Slough
James Cooksey, head of central London & diversification portfolios at The Crown Estate said: “These acquisitions will add to our critical mass in the retail sector where we see good potential to maximise returns through asset management. It is our intention to continue with further acquisitions as suitable opportunities arise.”
Wilkinson Williams advised on the latest purchases
