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Malcolm Robinson

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Posts posted by Malcolm Robinson

  3. Manor Walks Sold, guess to whom.

    in Talk of the Town

    Posted

    Trying to follow the breadcrumbs aint easy on this one...........

     

    5 March 1999

    Ashcroft Charterhouse will buy the Manor Walks retail centre in Cramlington, Northumberland, from O&H Properties for close to £37m.

     

    The Funds were launched in 1998 and 2000 respectively. Over the last five years HSBC Property Fund Management and its specialist property manager Ashcroft Estates have carefully assembled portfolios with added value potential and the funds now own 11 town centre shopping centres in England and Wales. These comprise:

    • Manor Walk Shopping Centre, Cramlington, near Newcastle

    • The Kingsland Shopping Centre, Dalston, London

    • The Quadrant Centre, Dunstable

    • The Orchards Centre, Haywards Heath

    • The Swan Centre, Kidderminster

    • The Aberfan Shopping Centre, Port Talbot

    • Rhiw Shopping Centre, Bridgend

    • North Point Shopping Centre, Hull

    • Union Square Shopping Centre, Torquay

    • Yate Shopping Centre, Yate

    • Quedam Shopping Centre, Yeovil

    Between them the shopping centres contain over 175,000 square metres (1.9 million square feet) of net lettable area, 95% of which is retail, and range in size from 8,825 square metres (95,000 square feet) to 27,870 square metres (300,000 square feet). There are over 700 tenants, 75% of whom are national covenants, paying rents totaling £24 million a year and service charges of £6 million a year. The main retailers are Boots, Marks & Spencer, WH Smith, Next, Dixons, Sainsburys and Tesco.

    Commenting on the purchase, Matt Horgan, a Director at CIT, said: "We are very excited about this opportunity. With broad diversification by geography and tenant, low starting rents and low vacancy levels, we believe the portfolio is defensive in nature, yet has the potential to deliver superior returns. The centres are dominant in their locations with little or no competition, and the low starting rents provide a strong base for further growth. Furthermore, we believe we can capitalise on and progress the significant development and asset management opportunities created by the former owners."

     

    Christopher Huxtable, a Director of HSBC Property Fund Management and the CSCF I & II Fund Manger commented: "The sale of the Funds has enabled us to crystalise returns for our investors significantly above the target range set when the Funds were launched. We are grateful for our investors' support and look forward to working with them in future ventures. We remain committed to the shopping centre sector and intend to launch a third fund later this year."

    Senior financing for the acquisition was provided by Deutsche Bank AG.

    DTZ acted on behalf of CIT on the transaction, and DTZ's shopping centre team has been retained as property managers for the entire portfolio.

     

    Hammerson bought the Manor Walks Shopping Centre and the neighbouring Westmorland Retail Park in 2006.

     

    Hammerson plc has exchanged contracts to acquire a portfolio of retail warehouses valued at £425 million through the purchase of LxB Holdings Limited, a property company specialising in out-of-town retail property. Each of the properties has an open A1 planning consent.

    Hammerson will purchase the shares in LxB Holdings Limited and repay shareholder loans to the company for a total of £199 million. Of this amount, £26 million will be satisfied by the issue of loan notes to one of the vendors and the balance from the group’s existing resources.

    The portfolio provides a combined floorspace of 1.25 million ft² (116,000 m²) and currently generates rents of £16.1 million per annum, an average of £13.90 per ft². The current ERV of the portfolio is £19.4 million equivalent to £16.50 per ft². This compares favourably with the average ERV of £23.70 per ft² for comparable UK retail park floorspace. In addition, there are excellent opportunities to extend and redevelop the schemes to increase the floorspace and enhance rental values. Hammerson anticipates that these developments could involve further expenditure totalling £200 million over the next five years.

    The portfolio comprises the following properties:            

    Manor Walks, Cramlington, Newcastle;

    Abbey Retail Park, Newtownabbey, Belfast;

    The Orchard Centre, Didcot;

    Seacourt Retail Park, Oxford;

    a 50% interest in Parc Tawe Phase 1, Swansea.

    The vendors are Bank of Scotland Corporate, West Coast Capital (Retail Parks) Limited, BG Holding EHF and a group of management shareholders.

     

    John Richards, Chief Executive of Hammerson plc, said:

     

    “This acquisition substantially increases Hammerson’s critical mass in the retail parks sector and extends the group’s development pipeline for retail warehousing. The parks in this portfolio all benefit from open A1 consents and provide a platform for good rental growth. Retailer demand for well configured retail park space remains strong and we believe such schemes will continue to outperform.

  9. Whats the EU ever done for us.......

    in Chat Central

    Posted

    Before we all get too carried away with our own righteousness and of course incontestable conclusions can anyone tell me why the hell we are rattling Putin’s cage? 

     

    This wouldn’t have anything to do with the EU showing just how good it is at keeping the peace in Europe and therefore annulling anymore potential referenda in other EU countries, or am I just way too conspiratorial? 

  11. Whats the EU ever done for us.......

    in Chat Central

    Posted

    THIS IS WHY WE VOTED TO LEAVE THE EU

    There is absolutely no excuse for British industry being decimated by the EU. We were not prepared to stand by and let them continue.


    A few thoughts to ponder. 



    Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.

    Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.

    Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant ...in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.

    Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.

    British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.

    Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.

    Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.

    Marks & Spencer manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.

    Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.

    Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.

    Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.

    Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.

    Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.

    Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.

    ICI integration into Holland’s Akzo Nobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs

    Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.

    JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.

    UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.

    Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.

    Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.

    The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.

    Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to 
    their loss-making aviation side in Canada.

    39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU

    The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. 

    The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

    Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, there used to be many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.
    I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.

    I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.
    Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,

    1 You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.

    2 You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.

    • Like 3

  23. Bedlington Gateway Features

    in Talk of the Town

    Posted

    This was my original brief to the manufacturers.  

     

    Its now tother way round and we were going to have a platform behind so people could stand and if a picture was taken square on in front it would look as though they were in the driving compartment.  Unfortunately H&S has seen to that one but we still get the scale model in steel!   

    DEA.PNG

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