Investment in shopping centres will fail to match 2014’s high

Annual investment in shopping centres in 2015 is predicted to reach 4.3 billion pounds, according to research from global real estate advisors CBRE, falling short of 2014’s nine-year high.

CBRE’s research shows that the total investment for 2015 is set to drop 23 percent below 2014’s volume of 5.3 billion pounds, and one explanation given for the dip is the lack of a ‘super regional’ transaction, usually favoured by REITs, which this year made up a very small part of the market.

Private equity has dominated the landscape in 2015 accounting for 46 percent of all acquisitions across 26 transactions. This contrasts with previous years when purchasers were evenly split across REITs, institutions and private equity.

So far this year, UK institutions have made up 26 percent of the market in 13 transactions. Major deals have included Islington’s Angel Shopping Centre and Central London’s West One, acquired by Norges for 240 million pounds.

Tim Williams, director of retail capital markets at CBRE, said: “There are still key deals worth in excess of 600 million pounds set to complete before the end of the year including Grand Central in Birmingham and Festival Place in Basingstoke.

“While the forecast for total investment is healthy, we won’t be seeing the sort of volumes we saw in 2014.”