50% Stake In Eden Walk Shopping Centre Acquired

RNS Number : 8423I

British Land Co PLC

31 July 2012

 



British Land Acquires 50% Stake in Eden Walk Shopping Centre,

Kingston-upon-Thames, South West London

British Land has purchased a 50% stake in Eden Walk Shopping Centre in Kingston-upon-Thames, South West London, from Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) for £41.5 million, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.35%. The acquisition forms another joint venture between British Land and USS, who will continue to hold the remaining 50% stake. British Land and USS are already joint venture partners developing the Whiteley Shopping Centre in South Hampshire.

Eden Walk is a 276,000 sq ft open shopping centre in the centre of Kingston. It has 22 shop units, three offices and a 697 space multi-storey car park. The centre was built in 1968, extended in 1979 and refurbished in 2010, and is anchored by Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Boots and BHS. British Land will take responsibility for the asset management of the shopping centre with immediate effect.

Kingston, which is in the south west of London, has one of the strongest consumer catchment areas in the UK with 1.3 million people generating retailer demand significantly above the average. The town has a high proportion of young affluent residents and dominates its local area, and has a market share of 24.8% of available spend in its catchment area, representing total shopper expenditure of over £2 billion.

As part of the transaction, British Land will act as development manager appraising opportunities to extend and enhance the centre in liaison with other key stakeholders, including The Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.

Charles Maudsley, Head of Retail for British Land, said: "We are delighted to extend our successful relationship with USS and secure a key, strategic asset with extremely strong underlying fundamentals and significant development potential, increasing British Land's exposure to the Greater London market. Kingston's superb catchment and shopper profile offer huge potential and British Land has the ability, experience and the right strategy to deliver an exceptional world class town centre development."

Graham Burnett, Head of Property for USS, said: "We are very pleased to be able to extend the successful relationship with British Land. Our combined skills will enable us to capitalise on the strength of the existing asset."

British Land and USS are developing the 300,000 sq ft new build Whiteley Shopping Centre in Hampshire which is already 76% pre-let/under offer and is due to open in spring 2013.  The scheme will comprise over 50 units totalling 242,000 sq ft of retail space, 58,000 sq ft of restaurants, cafés and other facilities and 1,136 free car park spaces.  M&S, Next and Tesco will anchor the scheme with other pre-lets including H&M, Boots, JD Sports, Bank, Sports Direct, Frankie & Benny's and Starbucks.

CBRE acted for British Land and USS was represented by Jones Lang LaSalle and Morgan Williams.

Enquiries:

British Land

Investor Relations

Sally Jones, British Land                                                             020 7467 2942

Media

Jackie Whitaker, British Land                                                      020 7467 3449

Emma Hammond, FTI Consulting                                                 020 7269 9347

Pip Wood, British Land                                                               020 7467 2942

Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group                                                020 7251 3801

USS

Media

Ceri Edwards, Redwood                                                               020 7828 5553

Notes to Editors

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £15.8 billion (British Land share £10.3 billion), as valued at 31 March 2012. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and visited by over 300 million people each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our occupancy rate of 98.1% and average lease length to first break of 11.3 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 61% of our portfolio with around 27 million sq ft of retail space across 89 retail parks, 97 superstores, 12 shopping centres and 10 department stores. The retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats and our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers. Over 80% of our retail parks have open A1 consent.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 34% of the portfolio (which will rise to an estimated 40% on completion of current developments). Our 7 million sq ft of high quality office space includes Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. We have committed £1.2 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.3 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Managing our environmental, economic and social impacts is central to the way we do business and deliver value for our shareholders. We assess the issues that matter most to us and our stakeholders on an on-going basis and, where appropriate, adjust our strategic focus to reflect this. For the coming year we have adjusted our priorities to focus on managing our buildings efficiently, supporting communities, developing sustainable buildings and engaging our staff. For each of these priorities we are targeting our efforts and resources at initiatives where we can achieve the biggest impacts.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

About USS

USS is one of largest private sector pension funds in the UK with property assets totalling approximately £2.6bn. USS has acquired in excess of £1 billion of commercial and residential property over the last two years. www.uss.co.uk

 

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