The Crown Estate has sold its 50% stake in Edinburgh retail centre Fort Kinnaird to M&G Real Estate in a £167.3m deal.
British Land controls the other half of the Scottish shopping park.
Fort Kinnaird was previously operated under a 50-50 joint venture between the Crown Estate and BL’s Hercules Unit Trust, called the Gibraltar Limited Partnership. The deal comes as the partnership expires.
British Land owns 78% of Hercules Unit Trust, which owns the remaining 50% of the retail park. British Land is the property adviser to the asset, which spans 560,000 sq ft.
Fort Kinnaird, valued at £334.5m, has a catchment of more than 800,000 people and estimated annual footfall of 14m.
The centre’s anchor tenants are M&S, Primark, Next and Odeon. More than 85,000 sq ft of store openings and lettings have been achieved recently at Fort Kinnaird, including JD Sports, Office, Swarovski, Skechers, Pure Gym and Wagamama.
John Duxbury, head of retail at M&G Real Estate, said: “Our partnership at Fort Kinnaird underlines our commitment to prime retail, which continues to prove resilient to competition from e-commerce and reflects our strategy of investing in secure assets with long-term prospects for income and capital appreciation.”
Knight Frank advised M&G Real Estate; CBRE and Griffiths Eccles represented the Crown Estate.
In a separate transaction, the Crown Estate has acquired full ownership of Gallagher Shopping Park in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
It previously owned half of the shopping park through its interest in the Gibraltar English Limited Partnership, with the remainder held by Hercules Unit Trust.
The retail park has more than 7m visitors per year. Tenants include Next, Homesense, Oak Furnitureland, DFS and Boots, alongside a food and beverage offering including Costa, Greggs and Subway.
In recent years, the Crown and its partners have invested £2.5m to modernise its store fronts, improve landscaping and reconfigure the car park.
Hannah Milne, director of regional at the Crown Estate, said: “We have enjoyed a successful partnership on Fort Kinnaird, working alongside HUT and the British Land team. We are now focused on Gallagher Shopping Park; a strong scheme in a great location where we have invested alongside our partners over a number of years to help improve the experience for shoppers.”
To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@egi.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @estatesgazette
