UK shopping centre REIT Capital & Regional announced on Wednesday that it has completed the acquisition of The Gyle shopping centre in Edinburgh.
The €46 mln deal, which was first announced in August, was financed through existing funds held by the company, a new debt facility of £16 mln and some £25 mln set to be secured through a planned capital raising. The asset was acquired at a net initial yield of 13.51% that is expected to rebase to around 12%.
The 415,000 ft2 (38,500 m2) centre stands on a 50-acre site in Edinburgh and comprises 88 retail units. It is anchored by a Marks & Spencer store and Morrisons supermarket as well.
The property’s retail space is let at approximately £6.8 mln and approximately £5.77 mln of annual gross rent and net rental income, respectively, with strong rent collection and headline occupancy of 94%, as well as a weighted average unexpired lease term of 2.1 years.
With a 2022 footfall of 8.6 million, the Property has 2,800 free car parking spaces and directly serves two large affluent residential areas, as well as the commercial areas of South Gyle and Edinburgh Park.
Lawrence Hutchings, Chief Executive Officer, commented: ‘This established dual supermarket anchored community centre offers a number of asset management opportunities to create value, leveraging our expertise to improve occupancy and income. The acquisition will be accretive to income from day one, enhancing earnings in the first full year of ownership and thereby generating attractive risk-adjusted returns for shareholders.'
