Norges buys British Land out of Meadowhall
British Land has exchanged contracts to sell its 50% ownership in the 1.4m sq ft Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield to its partner Norges Bank Investment Management.
Norges has paid £360m for the stake, which was put up for sale through CBRE last year.
BL said the disposal – alongside the sale of a £7m slice of ancillary land earlier this year – values the shopping centre at £734m, some 3% above its September 2023 book value.
British Land has exchanged contracts to sell its 50% ownership in the 1.4m sq ft Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield to its partner Norges Bank Investment Management.
Norges has paid £360m for the stake, which was put up for sale through CBRE last year.
BL said the disposal – alongside the sale of a £7m slice of ancillary land earlier this year – values the shopping centre at £734m, some 3% above its September 2023 book value.
BL chief executive Simon Carter said: “We have had a successful partnership with Norges over many years and are delighted to continue to work alongside them as asset managers of the centre.
“Following the sale of Meadowhall, 93% of our portfolio is now in our preferred segments of retail parks, campuses and London urban logistics. We will continue to grow our retail park portfolio; with low capex requirements, parks offer attractive cash returns and at 99% occupancy we are delivering strong rental growth.”
BL said it would net a total of £156m from the sale, once debt of around £200m is accounted for. Those proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes and reinvestment into retail parks.
The REIT will remain as asset manager of Meadowhall, for which it will continue to earn fees in line with current terms
Mie Holstad, chief investment office of real assets at Norges, said: “We are very pleased to extend our ownership in Meadowhall, a dominant super regional shopping centre with strong occupier fundamentals.”
Head of UK real estate at Norges, Jayesh Patel, added: “Despite being out of favour, we remain confident in the prime shopping centre sector, where rents and yields have rebased significantly.”
Norges said it now valued the mall, which is encumbered by £426m of debt, at £720m.
The deal is expected to complete on 12 July.
Mike Ashley’s Frasers was among the other parties looking at buying the shopping centre, but pulled out. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the owner of the Westfield malls in London, was believed to have also put in a bid.
Photo from British Land
