U+I sells €25m UK retail portfolio

U+I disposes of €25m UK retail portfolio

U+I has disposed of Crown Glass Shopping Centre in Nailsea for €12.5m (£11.15m); the remaining two units at The Killingworth Centre in Newcastle for €8.4m (£7.5m); and 89-107 Queen Street in Cardiff for €4.2m (£3.75m). The combined assets were sold marginally below their aggregate book value as at 30 September 2019. These are non-core retail assets, outside the company's focus geographies, which include London City Region, Manchester and Dublin. These transactions leave €27.9m (£25m) in cash within the company's facility with Aviva.

 

Matthew Weiner, CEO of U+I, commented: "These disposals demonstrate further progress in our investment portfolio transition strategy as we focus on building a dynamic, flexible portfolio, driven by placemaking regeneration in our core geographies. We targeted the disposal of these mature assets at our Interims. It shows some resilience to have managed to complete these disposals at so close to aggregate half year book value in this challenging environment, where decision-making has almost ground to a halt and valuations are increasingly pressured. For now, our priority is to preserve cash but, once conditions start to approach normality, we will review opportunities to acquire regeneration focussed assets, whilst increasingly moving some components of our own development assets into our investment portfolio to drive long-term value."

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