Bury shopping centre sold for £52m
INFRARED Capital Partners has bought the Mill Gate shopping centre in Bury for £52m.
It said it had exchanged contracts for the 400,000 sq ft centre which has 140 shops, buying it from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (DWIP) which is now part of Aberdeen Asset Management.
The deal strengthens Infrared’s portfolio in the region which also includes two centres in Liverpool city centre, St John’s and Clayton Square. It has four other shopping centres in the UK.
Christopher Huxtable, fund manager at InfraRed, said: “We are excited about this latest addition to our growing UK shopping centre portfolio. This investment follows our strategy of acquiring dominant town centre assets, in top 100 UK retail destinations that benefit from a combination of high footfall, affordable rents and high potential for value addition.
“With an annual footfall of nearly 13 million, the scheme dominates the town centre and provides the only covered retail environment in the vicinity. We will make further investment into the asset which will benefit tenants and customers at Mill Gate and indeed the town of Bury overall.”
Peter Webb, senior investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, said: “We were keen to take advantage of a strong market and the sale allows the co-investing Funds to follow individual mandates going forward.”
InfraRed has appointed the Hark Group as asset managers and Munroe K Asset Management as property managers. Barker Proudlove, Lunson Mitchenall and Olswang provided occupier market advice, real estate advisory and legal services to InfraRed respectively. Cushman and Wakefield acted for Aberdeen Asset Management.
