New York-listed Ares Management has acquired the Piccadilly Place office and retail property in the English city of Manchester for £117 mln (€145 mln).
Ares carried out the acquisition of the 29,000 m2 complex on behalf of a real estate fund it manages.
Piccadilly Place is comprised of two adjacent mixed-use buildings — Three and Four Piccadilly Place — as well as a three-story basement car park. The office space is 95% let to tenants including Arup, Barclays, Egencia, Orega, NuGen, Weightmans, EC Harris and the NHS Strategic Health Authority. Retail tenants include Anytime Fitness, which just opened its doors at Piccadilly Place last month, as well as Starbucks and Pita Pit.
'The market fundamentals in Manchester look increasingly attractive, and we believe Piccadilly Place, which is ideally located next to a major transportation hub and in a high traffic area of the city, is set to benefit from this strategically important and improving location,' said Wilson Lamont, partner at Ares Management. 'We see significant potential to make a number of improvements and add value to the property including filling vacant space and improving the management of the properties.'
Ares was advised on the transaction by Property Alliance Group and King Street Commercial.
Ares Managementis a global alternative asset manager with $94 bn (€83 bn) of assets under management at end-December 2015.
