British Land splashes £240m on retail park acquisitions
British Land has acquired £240m worth of retail parks, as the real estate investment trust looks to reinvest the £360m it made from the sale of its stake in Meadowhall Shopping Centre.
The six assets – which were all acquired since April – have a weighted average unexpired lease term of five years.
The retail parks include:
- Orchard Centre in Didcot and Cyfarthfa Shopping Park in Merthyr Tydfil, both acquired from Brookfield
- Enham Arch Retail Park in Andover, Queen’s Drive Retail Park in Kilmarnock, and St David’s Retail Park in Bangor, all acquired from M7 Real Estate
- In addition, British Land has acquired the remaining 12.5% interest in New Mersey Retail Park, Speke, Liverpool.
The group said that the £240m total purchase price reflects a blended net equivalent yield of 7.4%.
Simon Carter, chief executive of British Land, said: “We are seeing good opportunities to allocate capital into retail parks, and have swiftly delivered our plan to fully offset the earnings dilution from the £360m Meadowhall disposal with the acquisition of £240m of high quality retail parks at attractive yields. With low capex requirements, parks offer attractive cash returns and, with 99% occupancy, our portfolio is delivering strong rental growth.”
In March, British Land announced that it had completed £120m worth of retail park deals, acquiring three sites and offloading its 50% stake in another.