Landsec boss Mark Allan last week signalled a desire to spend up to £1bn on retail. Half may go on Liverpool One.
Meanwhile, British Land boss Simon Carter is selling Sheffield mega-mall Meadowhall. Any bets on who is making the right call?
The 1.4m sq ft Sheffield centre was bought in 1999 for £1.17bn by then BL chair Sir John Ritblat. A 50% stake was sold to Norges in 2012 for £750m by chief executive Chris Grigg. Today, Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is tipped to buy 100% for £750m. Poor Norges.
Sir John was on good form at a Make Architects party last week. I was on bad form. Forgetting to ask the 88-year-old founder of modern-day BL his (caustic?) view on today’s mini-scoop. Meadowhall was secretly earmarked years ago by Grigg as the maiden float to boost the launch of International Property Securities Exchange (IPSX).
No matter. Either Grigg got cold feet, or Carter said no in 2020, when he took over. The decision proved a mortal wound. Non-exec director Richard Croft tried to salvage IPSX in 2021 with the float of the Birmingham Mailbox. Nobody followed. The Exchange closed last September.
Millions were lost over agonisingly slow 10-year half-life of IPSX. A good idea which missed its moment. Desultory talks of an IPSX ‘lite’ do continue.
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