Legal & General is close to selling its Midsummer Place shopping centre in Milton Keynes to Capital Shopping Centres.
The 430,000 sq ft mall was put up for sale through Cushman & Wakefield in December last year. It was seeking around £230m – a 5.5% yield – for the shopping centre. CSC is understood to have bid close to £250m.
Bids were called earlier this month and are understood to have come from a wide range of parties, including Land Securities, British Land, Hammerson, Lend Lease, Deka and Malaysian investors KWAP and Employees Provident Fund.
The deal would be the first large-scale acquisition for CSC, which will this month rebrand itself and its shopping centres as intu, in more than a year. It spent almost £70m buying the 487,000 sq ft Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham in November 2011.
L&G initially sought to sell a 50% stake in the mall but was overwhelmed with bids, so put the entire asset up for sale.
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
