St. Modwen Properties Plc (LON:SMP) has exchanged contracts for the disposal of its long leasehold interest in the 495,000 sq ft Edmonton Green shopping centre in Enfield, north London, to Edmonton Green Limited, an affiliate of Crosstree Real Estate Partners LLP, for a total cash consideration of £72.0m. The disposal price represents a small premium to the £70.2m book value of the asset as at November 2017. The Edmonton Green shopping centre produced £4.0m net rental income during 2017 and is currently 96% let to more than 160 tenants. The sale is expected to complete shortly.
In addition, St. Modwen has completed the sale of two smaller retail assets in Liverpool and Cannock via two separate transactions for £9.9m in aggregate; 6% above the combined book value of the assets as at November 2017.
Rupert Wood, Property Director – Asset Management, St. Modwen, said:
“These disposals are in line with our strategic objective to refocus our portfolio towards assets with strong structural growth characteristics. Since the start of this year we have sold £177m of retail assets, on average less than 1% below book value, representing more than half of our overall retail portfolio. Combined with the disposal of £49m of small assets in the year to date, this means we have comfortably exceeded our increased target to sell £150-175m of retail and small assets for the full year. Whilst these disposals will reduce our rental income in the near term, recycling the proceeds into our much higher yielding industrial/logistics pipeline is expected to deliver a marked increase in income over time.”
