Institutional landlord Intu has completed the sale of an out-of-town retail park in Northern Ireland to NewRiver, as its chief executive continues his focus on fixing the business’ balance sheet through disposals.
Intu announced this morning it had completed the sale of the 231,000 sq ft Sprucefield Retail Park outside of Lisburn to NewRiver for £40m, its June 2019 valuation.
In a separate statement, NewRiver said, once completed, the acquisition of Sprucefield will generate an additional £3.7m of net property income annually.
The owner of shopping centres such as Lakeside has suffered a challenging year and seen its portfolio valuations badly affected by a spate of retail administrations and CVAs.
At its interim results in July, Intu reported a decline in the value of its properties of £650.4m – a fall of 6%. This propelled it to a first-half loss of £503.4m versus a profit of £122.7m in the previous comparable period.
Intu boss Matthew Roberts said the disposal of Sprucefield and other sites had seen the landlord recoup over £260m this year alone.
“We announced our new strategy at the interim results in July. A key element of this is fixing the balance sheet which includes creating liquidity through disposals,” he said.
“We are pleased to conclude this transaction, which along with the part-disposal of Intu Derby and other sundry asset sales in 2019 brings the year to date disposals total to £268m.”
The landlord is also currently in the process of disposing of two of its assets in Spain and is looking raise new equity.
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