The Herald Fund, Henderson Global Investor's €900 mln retail fund, is working on a potential acquisition of a shopping centre in Germany and looking at other opportunities as it seeks to invest its remaining €100 mln in equity. David Turner, who took over as head of the fund in March this year, told PropertyEU at Expo Real in Munich that Germany and France top Herald's list of target countries although France remains a difficult market to get into.
The Herald Fund, Henderson Global Investor's €900 mln retail fund, is working on a potential acquisition of a shopping centre in Germany and looking at other opportunities as it seeks to invest its remaining €100 mln in equity. David Turner, who took over as head of the fund in March this year, told PropertyEU at Expo Real in Munich that Germany and France top Herald's list of target countries although France remains a difficult market to get into.
Herald has no plans to make further acquisitions in the UK in the near future, Turner said. Earlier in the year Herald said it felt UK retail looked good and it acquired the Stanley Green Retail Park in Wilmslow, Manchester, from Aviva Investors for £35.6 mln (EUR 41.6 mln) in August. This represented a net initial yield of 7%. But in a matter of weeks the UK market for retail changed so rapidly that a deal like Stanley Green would achieve a 6.5% yield now, Turner said. One of the reasons for the pricing shift, Turner says, is that supply has dried up. Large owners who had been under pressure to sell had managed to recapitalise instead.
