Irish company pays €25m for UK centre

UKInvestmentA company controlled by Sean Mulryan and Paddy Kelly has bought a UK shopping centre with significant redevelopment potential, writes Jack Fagan

A Dublin-based property investment and development company, Markland Holdings, has acquired the Hersham Green Shopping Centre in Hersham, Surrey, for over €25 million. The property has significant redevelopment potential.

Markland is controlled by property developers Sean Mulryan and Paddy Kelly and has a growing portfolio in Ireland, the UK and Central Europe. Separately, the two businessmen run their own property companies - Mr Mulryan guides Ireland's largest property company, Ballymore Properties, while Mr Kelly concentrates mainly on housebuilding.

The multi-let Hersham Green Shopping Centre has 14 retail units and is anchored by a Waitrose supermarket under a new 20-year lease which it acquired last May.

Apart from the obvious knock-on effect of having a successful Waitrose supermarket now operating out of the centre, Markland obviously envisages that with four acres of grounds available there is obvious scope to provide additional retail facilities and a considerable number of homes.

Aidan Scully, managing director of Markland Holdings, said yesterday that the deal complied with their overall strategy of expanding their portfolio in the UK and Central European markets. Hersham Green appealed because of its obvious development potential and the scope to introduce better asset management. The long lease to Waitrose underpinned the investment.

Fergus Keane, director of UK investments at Hamilton Osborne King in London, said the deal provided an excellent opportunity to acquire a good quality, reversionary shopping centre in an affluent part of Surrey.

"We feel that the introduction of Waitrose into the shopping centre will mean that it will compare favourably with competing locations. There are also development and asset management opportunities to further enhance the scheme. These factors, coupled with the quality of the anchor tenant, were the real drivers behind the deal," he said.