AshbyCapital, the real estate investment company, has purchased Morfa Retail Park in Swansea from The Crown Estate for €110.4m (£83.5m) on behalf of its group investment company.
The 23,783m2 (256,000ft2) property is fully let to retail tenants including Morrisons, Currys PC World, B&Q, TK Maxx, Argos and Sports Direct. Its restaurant tenants include KFC, Pizza Hut, Frankie & Benny’s, Harvester and Starbucks. The scheme also includes 1,042 car parking spaces.
Morfa Retail Park is located 2.4km (1.5miles) to the north of Swansea city centre and directly adjacent to the Liberty Stadium, which is the home ground for Swansea City Football Club and the Ospreys rugby team, as well as a major MICE venue. More than 314,000 people live within a 20-minute drive of the property. AshbyCapital has appointed Quadrant Estates, the specialist retail park manager, as asset manager.
Peter Ferrari, chief executive of AshbyCapital, said: “Our focus is on identifying, acquiring and adding value to office, retail and residential properties in prime locations. As Swansea’s premier shopping park and the dominant retail centre in the South West of the country, Morfa Retail Park is an excellent addition to our portfolio and we are very pleased to have worked with The Crown Estate to conclude this purchase in a very short timescale. This acquisition offers stable core income at an attractive yield with the prospect for further growth through asset management, and we look forward to working with the expert team at Quadrant to realise its potential.”
Hannah Milne, head of The Crown Estate’s regional portfolio said: “Both schemes have been strong investments, helping us to build critical mass in the sector and providing strong returns for the portfolio. As we continue to focus on larger, more dominant schemes, now is the right time to sell and take advantage of strong capital markets, following successful delivery our asset management strategies for these parks.”
Morfa Retail Park has changed hands a number of times in the last decade. In 2006 Capital & Regional plc, the co-investing property asset manager, disposed of the park to The Junction for approximately €128.15m (£105m), before The Crown Estate purchased the centre in 2011 for €103.78m (£80.2m).
