Praxis, the privately owned UK real estate investor and manager, has completed its acquisition of one of Scotland's largest shopping centres, CoStar News can reveal.
Praxis revealed in November that it had replaced the Strathclyde Pension Fund and Ediston Property at the front of the bidding for the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow, as reported. It is thought to be paying around £50 million.
St Enoch Centre comprises 830,000 square feet of retail and leisure on a 12-acre site at the intersection of Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, adjacent to Glasgow Central Train Station. It has 900 car parking spaces. It is asset-managed by CBRE's Sovereign Centros on behalf of a banking consortium that comprises Morgan Stanley and M&G and is anchored by tenants including Boots, Hamleys and HMV.
The asset was last traded in 2013 and under the previous ownership, the centre saw capital investment that created a new leisure quarter anchored by Vue Cinema alongside new entrants to the scheme such as Boom Battle Bar, Level X, Escape Hut, Wagamama, and Wingstop.
Next has recently opened a flagship store and Japanese fashion chain Uniqlo will imminently open a 25,000-square-foot store.
James Hewitt, COO of Praxis, said in a statement: "The purchase of the St Enoch Centre is our first significant balance sheet investment into the retail sector in eight years. We are acquiring the asset against a backdrop of an improving tenant mix, footfall growth and increasing average basket spend throughout the scheme. Praxis has waited patiently to re-enter a sector where we have a market leading track record and we are now seeking to invest at scale into a number of discrete opportunities.”
Ian Shorrock, Head of Retail at Praxis, added: "The scheme is a landmark asset with significant unrealised potential and we intend to make a substantial capital investment to further enhance the offer. We believe St Enoch's performance will benefit from our integrated approach to managing operationally complex assets and we look forward to working closely with the c.100 tenants in the scheme."
Praxis was advised by GCW. The vendor was advised by JLL.
The completion of the acquisition will add to a sense that the shopping centre investment market is picking up again after a slower start to 2025 than had been expected.
In April, MDSR Investments completed the acquisition of Festival Place Shopping Centre in Basingstoke for £99.1 million from receivers BDO, advised by Savills, while this week Hammerson confirmed it is in talks take full control of Brent Cross Shopping Centre in north London in a £200 million transaction, as reported.
Mark Stansfield, head of UK analytics at CoStar, said: “UK shopping centre investment volumes have moderated since a flurry of activity at the end of last year. The circa £1.8 billion of shopping centres to change hands in the second half of 2024 made it the busiest period in over two years as a host of investors targeted the subsector eyeing outsized returns amid historically low pricing, culminating in Landsec’s £490 million acquisition of a 92% stake in Liverpool One in December.
"Momentum then fell away sharply in the first quarter, which was one of the quietest periods on record. However, the £50 million sale of Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre, which comes hot on the heels of last month’s £99 million sale of Festival Place in Basingstoke, could usher in a busier period as interest rates continue to fall, real wages grow and the retailing environment slowly improves.”