Latest acquisition confirmed with £5 million purchase in town’s prime retail pitch

Ashfield Land has acquired Bridgend Shopping Centre in the heart of the South Wales town’s retail core for £5 million.

The deal sees Ashfield Land increasing its overall ownership of retail property assets within a diversified national investment and development portfolio.

Ashfield Land has acquired the c. 90,000 sq ft shopping centre from Hawkstone Properties (Bridgend) Limited, which was acting by its Administrators, Moorfields.

The centre includes 15 retail units the majority of which front onto Brackla Street in the heart of the town. The centre is directly adjacent to a 546 space shoppers’ car park.

The shopping centre is currently let to a mix of established national brands and tenants include Peacocks, Iceland, Greggs and Poundland.

Nick Scott, Director at Ashfield Land, said: “Bridgend Shopping Centre adds another strong-potential and well-configured retail asset into our expanding portfolio. Bridgend will see substantial growth over the coming years and this shopping centre is ideally placed to serve the value end of the market and benefit from that growth. This is another good asset for us to acquire where we can provide value-add initiatives to which our asset management skills are ideally suited.”

Ashfield Land owns and invests in commercial property across the UK and has a strong track record in asset management for retail property and business parks.

It believes in active asset management of assets to identify opportunities for improvement and it works closely with occupiers to drive value across its portfolio.

Prime Retail advised Ashfield Land on the deal. Savills acted as sales agents for Moorfields.

Arron Kendall, Administrator, said: “We are delighted to have secured a sale of Bridgend Shopping Centre. The centre is in a good location and, under its new ownership, we hope it will grow and secure a number of new tenants. We wish the centre all the best under the new ownership.”

The shopping centre is located at CF31 1BZ. Bridgend has a primary retail catchment population of 65,692 people (2011) reflecting a shopping population of 36,106 people. This increases to 127,097 people in the secondary reach area. The town has an annual comparison goods spend of £173,551,000 and an annual core convenience goods spend of £123,770,000 taking into account any competing retail centres (Pitney Bowes 2013).