Sale of Two Retail Parks for ?78m

RNS Number : 7072F

British Land Co PLC

29 April 2014

 



British Land Sells £78 million of Retail Parks

British Land today announces the sale of two retail parks in Dumbarton and Cwmbran for £78 million:

·      St James Retail Park in Dumbarton has been sold to The Legal & General Property Unit Trust for £45.75 million (a net initial yield 5.9%)

·      Cwmbran Retail Park has been sold to UBS for £32.3 million (a net initial yield 6.4%)

The 250,000 sq ft St James Retail Park is anchored by Asda, M&S Simply Food and Homebase and other occupiers include Argos, Halfords and Frankie & Benny's. Cwmbran Retail Park comprises 136,000 sq ft with retailers including B&Q, Next, TK Maxx, Brantano, Currys/PC World and Pets at Home.

Charles Maudsley, Head of Retail for British Land, said: "These sales are in line with our strategy to further focus our retail portfolio on high quality, locally preferred shopping destinations. Over the last 12 months, we have sold £386 million of retail assets which is broadly matched by the acquisitions we've made. Our most significant acquisition was SouthGate, a high quality shopping centre in Bath."

British Land was represented by CBRE (Dumbarton) and Savills (Cwmbran).  Legal & General was represented by Strutt & Parker and UBS by Cushman & Wakefield.

Enquiries:

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

Notes to Editors

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). 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 receive over 300 million visits each year. Our property portfolio is focused on the UK, in prime retail locations and London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. We have total assets in the UK, owned or managed, of £17.1 billion (British Land share £11.2 billion), as valued at 30 September 2013. Our occupancy rate is 97% and average lease length to first break of 11 years.

UK retail assets account for 59% of our portfolio, around 80% of which are located at prime out of town sites. Comprising around 26 million sq ft of retail space across 67 retail parks, 87 superstores, 16 shopping centres and 12 department stores and 77 leisure assets, the retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats. Our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 39% of the portfolio, which will rise to an estimated 43% on completion of current committed developments. Our 7 million sq ft of high quality office space includes Regent's Place and Paddington Central in the West End and Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share).

Our size and substance demands a responsible approach to business. We believe leadership on issues such as sustainability helps drive our performance and is core to the delivery of our overall objective of driving shareholder value.

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

 

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