Fears over declining values have caused another two shopping centre deals to wobble.
The sale of the Friars Square shopping centre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, to Protego Real Estate and Boultbee is understood to have collapsed after the pair tried to reduce their winning bid for the 300,000 sq ft mall by around £5m.
Protego/Boultbee had bid £94m for the centre, which was put up for sale with a £90m price-tag by F&C Property Asset Management and CB Richard Ellis Investors in June.
The pair were buying the shopping centre for their £350m UK Actively Managed Shopping Centre Fund. CBRE and Colin Buckle & Co were advising the vendors.
Michael Elliott and Lunson Mitchenall acted for the Protego fund.
Glenn Maud’s £76.5m acquisition of Legal & General’s 210,000 sq ft St George’s centre in Harrow, north-west London via his investment vehicle PropInvest, is also understood to be under threat.
A number of retail deals have collapsed or been withdrawn over the summer, with many blaming turmoil in the credit markets for declining investor interest.
Commercial property values are expected to fall dramatically in the final quarter, with yields on prime assets moving out by upto 25 basis points, and around 50bp on secondary assets.
