Axis Retail Partners, acting in partnership with Generali, have reportedly exchanged contracts to buy St Georges Shopping Centre in Harrow from RDI REIT on behalf of pension fund clients of LaSalle Global Partner Solutions.
The shopping centre, was refurbished in 2015 and sits at the end of the high street, with a 3-minute walk from Harrow on the Hill station and a 20-minute train journey to Central London.
The 215,000-sq ft convenience retail scheme has an annual footfall of around nine million customers with leisure and F&B anchors across more than 30 units on two retail levels and three levels of parking above
Toby Smith, Axis co-founder and chief investment officer, commented: “We are very pleased with having been able to execute our first UK deal. We have been active in the UK market for almost 2 years and believe that now is the right time to start investing as the market starts to recover from COVID, which continues to be the ultimate stress test to the sector.”
Robert Jewell, Axis UK managing director, said: “I have joined Axis at this exciting juncture as I am convinced we are at a turning point in the market which is shifting towards a Continental European model where relationships with our tenants will be more transparent and we will manage on the basis of the actual performance of retailers at our centres.”
Darren Robinson, senior fund manager at LaSalle Global Partner Solutions commented: “St Georges Shopping Centre is performing well, benefiting from rebased rental levels and offering a very attractive entry yield. The high leisure and food and beverage components put the centre in a strong position to benefit from an increase in social activity over time, though of course, we don’t expect that recovery to be linear in the very near term. We are very pleased to be working with the Axis Retail team again, having already worked with them prior to the formation of this new venture, and we look forward to working together in future.”
