The Irish Independent is today reporting that a major UK shopping centre has been sold at NAMA’s behest. The 400,000 sq ft (37,160 sq metre) Houndshill Shopping Centre in Blackpool was owned by Modus Ventures, the company most associated with Brendan Flood, the Yorkshire-born property magnate whose assets also included the Trinity Walk shopping centre in Wakefield and the Grand Arcade shopping centre in Wigan and for football fans, he is a director of Burnley Town Football Club.
Houndshill is reported to have been sold for GBP £100m (€112m) and the Independent says that the property is subject to a loan originally from Anglo said to have been €140m though it is unclear if there is accumulated interest on top now. NAMA is said to have acquired the loan at “a substantial discount”. Modus is understood to have substantial loans from Bank of Ireland also – according to the Manchester Evening News in 2008 “the deal [GBP £100m financing of 40 retail units], one of the largest seen since the credit crunch began to bite, is a positive sign that the banks are starting to fund major deals once more.”
The developer of Houndshill, Modus, got into difficulties two years ago and administrators from KPMG were then appointed to the group. Since the start of 2010, Centros has been asset-managing the Houndshill shopping centre on behalf of Anglo.
It is claimed that Houndshill is the 16th busiest in-town shopping centre in the UK and is ranked 58th (in size presumably) in the UK. It claims to have an annual footfall of 15.6m. The Blackpool catchment area has a population of 200,000 but the town benefits from 11m tourists annually. Interesting that Dundrum Town Centre with 79,000 sq metres and an annual footfall of 19m is said to be worth over €500m. The Independent reports that the Houndshill sale price represents a 7.5% yield; the buyer’s identity has not yet been revealed.
NAMA hasn’t made any announcement but at this stage you would have expected NAMA to be directly managing the loan.
NAMA Wine Lake 