Meadowhall sold for £360m by British Land

British Land sold its Meadowhall shopping center in Sheffield to a joint venture partner, a move that highlights the steep decline in retail property prices over the last decade.

Norwegian oil fund paid £360m for British Land’s 50% stake. This gives it control over the 1.5 million sqft shopping mall with more than 300 shops and bars, restaurants, and cinemas.

Meadowhall is now worth £734million, including the £14million sale of nearby land in this year. This is less than half of what Norges Bank (which runs the oil fund in Norway) estimated it to be worth back in 2012 when they bought their first 50% stake.

Meadowhall receives around 24 million visitors every year

The retail property market has been hammered in recent years. Online shopping’s growing popularity has led to the demise of some of Britain’s most famous and largest retailers. These include BHS, Debenhams, and Topshop. They would have been amongst the top tenants in shopping centres years ago.

Others have also been affected. In 2021, Land Securities a rival FTSE 100 tenant to British Land bought another 25% share in Bluewater, valuing it at £688million. This is a 70% cut from what the Kent shopping center was valued at when Landsec purchased a 30% holding just seven years earlier.

Jayesh Patel is the head of UK retail property at Norges Bank Investment Management. He said, “Despite being out-of-favor, we remain confident in prime shopping centres, where rents, yields, and other factors have significantly rebased.”

British Land sold Meadowhall last year, because its strategy was not compatible with that of Simon Carter, the chief executive. Simon Carter would rather invest his money in office campuses, retail parks and warehouses in inner-city areas, where he believes the demand for the property is higher.

Frasers Group is Mike Ashley’s retail empire. It was reported that British Land representatives and had held discussions about Meadowhall.

Meadowhall, Britain’s 5th largest shopping centre, has about 24 million annual visitors. Nearly 97 percent of the shops in Meadowhall were occupied at last count. Eddie Healey built it on the former site of Hadfields Steelworks, a late Yorkshire businessman.

The shopping center opened in 1990. At the time, it was said to have Britain’s largest roof and retail parking lot. Healey sold to British Land for £1.17billion in 1999, a deal that netted him £420m profit.

British Land, the former owner of Meadowhall Mall, has been asked to manage it by Norges.

The landlord will receive around £156 million after paying off the loans secured against Meadowhall. It plans to invest some of this money in retail parks.

Carter, 48 years old, is a fan of retail parks, as they are less expensive to operate for tenants. They can also use the shops within these parks as hubs for online returns or collection, which has become an increasingly important aspect of their business. They can be easily repurposed as “urban” warehouses and logistics depots if all else fails.

Mike Prew is a Jefferies property analyst. He said that British Land’s sale of Meadowhall was “not a real surprise” and “sensible, even if it has been overdue”. British Land’s shares fell by 4 1/2p or 1.1 percent to 398 1/2p Monday.