Royal Bank of Scotland is putting a £725m shopping centre portfolio, which includes crown jewel Fosse Park , up for sale.
The bank was going to include the Ulster bank debt lent to Ken Cheevers’ and John McGukian’s AFG Properties in its €715m Project Button commercial property loan portfolio, which is currently up for sale.
However, it decided to strip the eight UK retail assets, totaling 2.4m sq ft, out of the portfolio in favour of appointing Savills to offload them.
It is expected that the 500,000 sq ft Fosse Park retail park, which is in Leicester, will be put up for sale separately with a price tag of around £300m, with the remaining assets sold as a portfolio.
This would comprise Foyleside centre in Londonderry, Northern Ireland; Forestside in Belfast; Priory Meadow in Hastings, East Sussex; Palace Exchange , Enfield, north London; Abbeycentre in Newtonabbey, Belfast; Marshes in Dundalk, Ireland and The Avenue , Newton Mearns, Glasgow.
The move comes as the investor attempts to buy-back the £550m RBS loan behind four of its UK retail assets owned by their Foyleside vehicle.
As revealed by Estates Gazette in February the Northern Irish investors appointed PwC to find an equity backer to fund a discounted loan buyout in a process known as Project Anchor .
The four assets are Fosse Park, Priory Meadow, Foyleside and Forestside.
It is understood that this process is still running but any bid for the loan would have to match or exceed any offers made for the assets.
All parties declined to comment.
bridget.oconnell@estatesgazette.com
