Varde Partners has been selected as preferred bidder on the £305m Gemini portfolio.
The assets make up the majority of the portfolio previously owned by Glenn Maud’s Propinvest. APAM is asset manager for Varde, with Colony Capital amongst the underbidders.
The purchase reflect a net initial yield of less than 9%.
Administrators at Deloitte, together with CBRE Loan Servicing, instructed CBRE to begin marketing most of the remaining properties in May, following a handful of individual sales over the past two years.
The sale is the latest twist in a nine-year saga. The portfolio once totalled 36 assets and in 2006 was valued at £1.2bn. By 2012, it had crashed to less than half the value of the £918.9m Barclays Capital loan against which it was secured.
Deloitte was appointed by CBRE Loan Servicing when it called in the loan secured against Gemini in 2012, in one of the most high-profile administrations of the recession.
After the administrators were appointed, the outstanding loan balance, due in July 2016, stood at £850m. The valuation of the portfolio prior to the securitisation of the loan is now the subject of a high-profile legal case.
Four shopping centres make up roughly 50% by value of the remaining portfolio, the largest of which is Martineau Place in Birmingham (pictured), which was valued at £228.5m in 2006.
