Crown Estate pays £101m for Aintree retail park

THE Crown Estate, the agency which controls property officially owned by the Queen, has paid £101.5m for a retail park in Liverpool.

It has bought the 295,000 sq ft Racecourse Retail Park in Aintree which is home to M&S, Boots, Next, Best Buy, B&Q and Halfords.

The vendor, Guernsey-based quoted investor London & Stamford Property, made a 66% profit on the deal after buying the site for £60.9m from a subsidiary of Land Securities just 16 months ago.

The Crown has also paid £57m for the Victoria Retail Park in Nottingham, a deal which handed HSBC a 42.5% profit after paying £40m for the site last year.

Tim Vallance, head of out of town retail at Jones Lang Lasalle said the Crown had not paid over the odds. “They haven’t paid an unnecessarily high price,” he said. “They’ve bought strong assets with asset management potential and rents they believe can grow.

James Cooksey, head of central London and diversification portfolios for the Crown Estate, said the transactions were part of a plan to reduce the agency’s exposure to central London.

“These acquisitions are part of an active investment strategy to diversify the urban portfolio and reduce our central London weighting. These will add to our critical mass in the retail sector where we see good potential to maximise returns through asset management. It is our intention to continue with further acquisitions as suitable opportunities arise.”

The Crown Estate pays its profits to the Treasury.