British Land continues acquisition spree with Orbital Retail Park purchase
British Land has continued its retail park acquisition spree after purchasing Orbital Retail Park in Cannock, Staffordshire.
The asset has been acquired from Clearbell Property Partners, a fund managed by Clearbell Capital, for £27.6m.
The purchase comes after British Land recently snapped up a portfolio of seven schemes from Brookfield. The real estate investment trust also announced in September that it had spent £240m on retail parks since April.
Spanning 123,215 sq ft, Orbital Retail Park is home to 11 stores across two terraces, with anchor tenants including M&S, Boots, and Pets at Home. Recent entrants to the retail park include Aldi and PureGym, whilst Clearbell has also agreed new lettings to Tapi and Flooring Superstore, with the flooring retailers taking 10,000 sq ft and 4,000 sq ft of space respectively.
Situated close to the M6 Toll road, A460, and the West Midlands Designer Outlet, Orbital Retail Park is located in a strong retailing position, sitting adjacent to a Sainsbury’s supermarket as well as Gateway Retail Park.
British Land has taken on the asset management of the scheme, and is already in discussions with a major retailer to open a flagship unit in the current Homebase store.
Toby Saul, asset management director at Clearbell, said: “Over the last four years of ownership, we have worked to continuously improve the tenant mix at Orbital. Through this active asset management strategy, we have been able to secure several strong new tenants, including anchor tenant Aldi, that has seen footfall increase consistently. We are very pleased to have been able to sell to British Land who have the experience and expertise to take the scheme forward.”
Kelly Cleveland, head of real estate and investment at British Land, added: “This latest acquisition further solidifies our market leading position in retail parks as we continue to deliver on our strategy of recycling capital into this sub-sector. Retail parks remain the preferred physical retail format for an increasing number of retailers due to their affordability, adaptability and accessibility. We are nearly fully let across our parks portfolio and continue to see strong competition for this type of space.”
British Land was advised by Morgan Williams. KLM Real Estate advised Clearbell.
You can view British Land’s retail park portfolio on Completely Retail.