Praxis has sold one of the shopping centres from its £200m mall portfolio, Project Carbon, which it put up for sale last year.
Valad Europe has bought Garden Square shopping centre in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, for £19.3m – an 8.6% yield.
The 170,380 sq ft mall was originally put up for sale through CBRE in August 2014 as part of a £200m secondary shopping centre portfolio sell-off.
Also included in the original portfolio were the 310,000 sq ft Castle Dene shopping centre in Peterlee, County Durham; the Broadway centre in Plymstock, near Plymouth; the 61,000 sq ft Union Gate scheme in Bristol; and Crossgates in Leeds.
Praxis has since decided not to sell Project Carbon as a portfolio and is now testing the market on an individual-asset basis.
It hopes to bring Union Gate to market having recently finished a redevelopment and letting programme.
Gary Roberts, Praxis’ head of capital markets, said: “Project Carbon was an opportunity for us to test the strong capital market activity last autumn, and although we did seriously consider an opportunistic portfolio disposal, the level of bids were not sufficiently tempting weighed against the considerable unexploited value in the portfolio.”
Praxis acquired Garden Square from IBRC and asset manager Vale Retail in 2013 for £14m and has since installed a new entrance and secured planning consent for a new residential scheme.
Gabriel McLaughlin, director and head of asset management at Praxis, said: “The centre had been neglected in the years before we acquired it, but the fundamentals were strong and the opportunity to turn it around was clear.”
CBRE acted for Praxis; Cushman & Wakefield acted for Valad Europe.
