UK: A small French SCPI just made a quiet but telling bet on a corner of Scotland's retail market that has held three national tenants for decades. Epsicap REIM has acquired St Catherine's Retail Park in Perth through its small-cap focused vehicle, Epsicap Nano, paying €12.2m for a property let entirely to Wickes, Pets at Home and B&M. The acquisition extends a portfolio that now spans seven countries, with assets outside France accounting for more than half of the fund's total holdings.
The property offers 5,268 m² of retail space across two buildings within Perth's only retail park, a position that gives it a natural monopoly on convenience-led retail demand in the area. The first building has housed Wickes for more than 30 years, an unusually long single-tenant tenure that speaks to the site's enduring relevance to local shopping habits, while the second building, redeveloped in 2022, is split between Pets at Home and B&M on unexpired lease terms of 5 and 9.5 years respectively.
"With this acquisition, Epsicap Nano SCPI continues to strengthen its European presence. The UK's share of the portfolio, currently below 25%, remains controlled and could continue to grow while staying around 30%. The property itself has the fundamentals we look for in the SCPI: an established location with good accessibility, leading tenants, and diversification through its configuration as two independent buildings currently divided into three reasonably sized retail units," said Florian Le Quéré, Partner and Head of Investments at Epsicap REIM.
What makes this deal worth watching for investors is the deliberate ceiling Epsicap has set on its own UK exposure. Rather than chasing UK retail parks opportunistically as pricing has softened, the fund is capping the country's share of its portfolio at around 30%, a discipline that stands in contrast to the more aggressive UK weighting many continental European funds pursued during the last cycle. For smaller, retail-focused SCPIs, that kind of self-imposed diversification ceiling, paired with a preference for long-let, multi-tenant retail parks over single-let big boxes, may prove a more resilient template as UK retail park yields continue to attract cross-border capital chasing income stability over pure growth.
Epsicap REIM was advised on the transaction by Lismore Real Estate Advisors as investment agent, DLA Piper as legal adviser, and Jones Hargreaves as technical adviser.
People mentioned
- Florian Le Quéré, Partner and Head of Investments, Epsicap REIM
Companies mentioned
- Epsicap REIM, French fund manager behind the Epsicap Nano SCPI acquiring the Perth retail park
- Lismore Real Estate Advisors, investment agent on the transaction
- DLA Piper, legal adviser on the transaction
- Jones Hargreaves, technical adviser on the transaction
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