ING sells Royal Mills
ROYAL Mills, the upmarket apartment scheme in Manchester’s Ancoats, has been bought from ING Real Estate by the developer Renaker Build.
Renaker’s sister company Paragon Developments is already on site converting two former mills, Paragon and Royal Mills, after securing £4.7m from a government fund designed to kickstart stalled schemes.
It is understood that Renaker bought the long leasehold on the site, which includes six buildings and a development plot, in January.
The freehold is held by the Homes and Communities Agency, a throwback to a 20-acre compulsory purchase order issued in 2007 by the now defunct North West Development Agency to bring forward the regeneration of the area.
ING Real Estate completed the conversion of Old and New Sedgewick Mills and the new-build Fairbairn and McConnell buildings but had little appetite to continue when the economy collapsed.
Renaker is owned by managing director Daren Whitaker and has its registered office in Leeds and a base in Ancoats. He did not respond to calls from TheBusinessDesk.com. ING Real Estate could not be reached for comment.
The deal is too recent to have been registered on Land Registry documents but Companies House shows ING’s Royal Mills vehicle, ING RED UK (Royal Mills), had its name changed to RM Developments in January. At the same time a group of ING directors resigned and Mr Whitaker was appointed the sole director.
