Abu Dhabi Investment Authority has ended discussions to sell its majority stake in Liverpool One to Landsec, several sources at Mipim said.
ADIA had mandated JLL to sound out interest in its 69% stake in the city's 153,300 m2 shopping centre last summer, seeking a price of about £350 mln. However, sources in Cannes said they understood ADIA had pulled out of a sale last month.
Neither ADIA or Landsec had confirmed the discussions, but Mark Allen, CEO of Landsec has said the UK REIT wants to buy more strong shopping centres while they are still available at historically low prices.
In March 2023 the UK REIT acquired the 50% of St David's in Cardiff it didn't already own, for less than the value of the outstanding £113 mln debt, from lenders which controlled the stake followiing the demise of Intu.
At Mipim, the speculation was that sovereign wealth fund ADIA decided not to sell now - arguably at the bottom of the market - when prime malls are turning in very strong operating performances.
So far in this cycle, buyers of prime retail malls have been opportunistic capital in partnership with specialist shopping centre operators, but at Mipim, the talk was of institutions starting to consider investing in the asset class again.
Royal London Asset Management is tipped to be the institution buying 50% of the 120,700 m2 Centre:MK in Milton Keynes in the UK, which JLL was also marketing, for c£300m. The vendor is AustralianSuper.
Liverpool One was developed by UK private property company Grosvenor which still owns a minority stake. It has 170 shops, bars and restaurants and is anchored by John Lewis & Partners.
