Shopping centre fund collapses

A PROPERTY fund which owns shopping centres in Bootle and Oldham has gone into administration.

Partners from Grant Thornton have been appointed to the Britannica fund, managed by CBRE Global Investors, says PropertyWeek.com.

It owns The Strand in Bootle and Spindles Town Square in Oldham, as well as five others in Ashford, Durham, Irvine, Leicester and Wellingborough. All will continue to trade.

The fund was set up by ING Real Estate Investment Management in 2005, and the management passed to CBRE when the firm bought ING REIM last year.

It was once valued at more than £700m, but the secondary centres have dropped in value, and are now understood to be worth around the same as the debt – £360m – provided by the real estate lending division of ING.

Malcolm Shierson, joint administrator at Grant Thornton, said: “All of the shopping centres will continue to trade normally. Although each has generally traded satisfactorily in relation to regional and national trends, the economic environment for shopping centres generally remains tough and the Britannica estate is no exception to this.”

“The centres are well-maintained, although we will be committing a limited amount of capital expenditure for maintenance and, in some cases, improvements of the centres.”