Lender Corebridge Financial Institutional Investments has appointed Sovereign Centros from CBRE as asset manager on the Stratford Centre mall, which is next to the former London 2012 Olympic Park in east London.
The Stratford Shopping Centre comprises 318,000 square feet of retail across 61 retail units and has a footfall of 20 million.
Last year JLL was appointed to market the 7.3-acre site, which is also opposite the Stratford transport interchange and Westfield's giant Stratford City shopping centre, seeing £106.8 million or a 7% net initial yield.
Investment giant TPG Angelo Gordon and General Projects, the real estate developer founded by Jacob Loftus, had been in talks to buy the mall but those talks are no longer ongoing.
In a LinkedIn post, Simon Phipps, senior director – asset management at Sovereign Centros, the asset manager recently bought by CBRE, said: "The aspiration within the business plan is to capitalise on the asset's location to maximise net operating income, enrich the retailer mix, and unlock opportunities for further development. These efforts are set to shape Stratford Shopping Centre into an even more vibrant and desirable destination for shoppers, businesses, and the local community."
The Stratford Centre, which was built in the 1970s and refurbished in 1997, has remained well-let and busy despite concerns its huge neighbour at Westfield Stratford would decimate footfall when it opened more than a decade ago.
It is anchored by the grocery occupiers Sainsbury’s, Lidl and Iceland. Other tenants include Poundland, McDonald’s, Boots, JD Sports, Pure Gym and Superdrug. There is a 430-space council-owned multistorey car park above the shopping centre. The gross rental income is £8,818,062.
Frogmore bought the mall from Blackstone and Catalyst Capital for £141.5 million in 2017.
The overall site forms part of a larger regeneration opportunity which the local authority, Newham council, would like to bring forward. The site is part of its Stratford Island regeneration zone where consent has been granted for 423 private rented sector units in two 42- and 21-storey towers, a 95,000-square-foot office building, a 299-bedroom hotel and circa 33,000 square feet of retail.