Bury’s The Rock is ‘on the market’
LLOYDS Banking Group is understood to be planning a sale of The Rock shopping centre in Bury as part of a huge distressed loan portfolio.
The debt secured against the 570,000 sq ft shopping centre is part of a portfolio of loans that have a face value of around £1bn, which is being sold by the 41% government-owned bank, says PropertyWeek.com .
Although there are very few firms capable of buying the portfolio as a whole, any buyer is likely to quickly sell the shopping centre — and investors have been waiting for it to be sold for some time.
Accounts filed at Companies House in August show the scheme has £300m of debt secured against it. The loan was provided by HBOS, now part of Lloyds.
The scheme is worth £75m-£100m. It was developed by Thornfield Ventures, which went into administration in 2009 before the centre was completed. Lloyds and administrator Deloitte brought in Hammerson to manage the scheme on a fee basis. It was completed in 2010 and is anchored by Debenhams, Marks & Spencer, Next and Primark. There are now just six units vacant.
However, the development is complex and also has almost 400 homes. Some were developed and are now being sold by Miller Group, as part of a previous deal, but some are still to be completed.
The portfolio sale by Lloyds is codenamed Project Forth, and the properties secured against the £1bn of loans are understood to be worth around £600m. Most of the assets are in Scotland, and some are in the North.
It is the third UK loan portfolio to be sold by Lloyds in the past year. Lone Star bought the Project Royal loans — with a face value of £900m — at a 40% discount in December 2011, and Oaktree Capital Management bought the Project Harrogate loans — with a face value of £625m — at a 60% discount in August.
