Hurstwood Holdings has emerged as the privately owned property company that acquired the 95,000 sq ft Loreburne Shopping Centre in the Scottish town of Dumfries for a 30% yield.
This is the first shopping centre that the Manchester-based property investment and development company has acquired.
The centre was listed in Allsop’s March commercial catalogue with a guide of £2.75m to £3m and sold prior for just under £3m, as revealed by EG. The centre’s asset manager was Edinburgh House Estates.
Situated in the heart of the town centre on the main high street and close to the rail station, the Loreburne comprises 42 units over two floors and is home to retailers such as JD Sports, Superdrug, Poundland, The Works and Holland & Barrett, as well as local businesses including Whitecross Dental Care and a new Polish speciality store.
JD Sports has a 10-year lease from 2016, while a further 29 of the 42 units have lease reversions over the next five years and two are vacant. The centre also has an 80-space town centre car park.
Stephen Ashworth, chairman and CEO of Hurstwood Holdings, said: “This is a real coup for the company. It has been a long-term ambition of ours to own a shopping centre and we felt the time and opportunity was right to realise that ambition. This is the only shopping centre in the town. It has been very popular with both the local community and people from neighbouring towns and we believe it is vital to the future economic success of the area.
“Asset and estate management are core skills of our business and we have a fantastic, highly skilled team that will continue to look after this important shopping centre as part of our long term investment portfolio.”
Ashworth said the company has already recruited the existing centre manager, Jim Ireland, who has extensive experience and wants to “reach out to the community with our new ideas to take the centre forward to a fresh and successful future”.
Hurstwood Holdings is a commercial investment group with more than £180m of commercial and residential assets on 120 sites nationwide, housing more than 750 occupier clients.
The Loreburne Shopping Centre last changed hands in 2014, when Edinburgh House successfully competed for six secondary shopping centres put up for sale by the Glanmore Property Fund. Loreburne was one of the smaller centres in the portfolio, which was brought to market for around £80m – a 9.5% yield. It was seen at the time as a test of investor appetite for secondary shopping centres.
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Photo © Allsop
