A MAJOR shopping centre that sees millions of visitors a year, could be coming up on the auction block.
The owners of Meadowhall mall in Sheffield are eyeing up a whopping £750million sale, according to The Times.
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The giant shopping centre spanning 1.4million square feet is co-owned by property company British Land and Norwegian sovereign wealth fund Norges.
If a deal goes through it would be one of biggest sales for a shopping centre in the last 10 years.
Although it’s important to note, for shoppers nothing would change and all the individual retailers within the complex will stay open as usual.
The sales process is being handled by agents at CBRE and is said to be due to kick off within the next few weeks.
Meadowhall houses 290 stores, including the Apple store, Boss, Ernest Jones, Primark and Rituals.
It also hosts 50 places for food and drink such as FiveGuys, Wagamama and McDonald’s – as well as an 11-screen cinema.
The huge shopping complex is said to have roughly 30million visitors every year.
It was developed on the site of a former steelworks on the outskirts of the south Yorkshire city and first opened back in 1990.
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Nine years later the centre was sold for a huge sum of £1.2billion to British Land, earning a reported £700million profit between them.
Then in 2012 Norges bought a 50% stake in the business, when the mall was valued at £1.53billion.
The current reported asking price suggests that the value of the shopping centre has decreased by roughly half since a decade a go.
Any potential buyer for Meadowhall would take on a £450million debt pile, according to the report.
The current owners are said to not have received any income from the retail complex in the past three years due to the cost of financing the debt.
Although Meadowhall’s income is thought to be close to surpassing the debt costs.
The chief executive of British Land is understood to be planing on using the sale proceeds from Meadowhall to buy retail parks.
British Land has so far declined to comment on The Times report.
Shopping centres, like the high street, have suffered in recent years as consumer habits turn more towards online shopping.
That and high business rates, the property tax affecting non-domestic properties, has led to landlords being forced to accept sharp rent reductions.
Elsewhere, property firm Landsec is said to be close to a deal for a majority stake in the Liverpool ONE centre.
The deal would be worth around £350million.
Back in March, The Mall in Luton was bought in a £58million deal by Mike Ashley‘s Frasers Group after it was put up for sale in 2022.
The 900,000 square foot shopping centre houses over 150 retailers including Primark, TK Maxx, and H&M.
The value of big name shopping centres are said to have declined following the collapse of popular retailers like Debenhams and the Arcadia Group, which took up prime sites in malls.
Meanwhile, a fashion retailer bought by House of Fraser‘s owner is set to reopen after a huge closing down sale.
Plus, Wilko is pulling down the shutters on 38 shops today as it moves to close all of its 400 stores for good.
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