The Avenue at Newton Mearns
In 1993 Sovereign Land set up a Limited Partnership to acquire The Avenue at Newton Mearns (7 miles south west of Glasgow) from the receivers for £16m.
The partners included Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust, GiroCredit Bank and Sovereign Property Trust Ltd.
A 220,000 sq ft covered shopping centre, anchored by ASDA, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Dixons and Next, The Avenue has its own surface level car park.
Sovereign Land spent the 12 years implementing a highly successful asset management strategy, improving the quality of tenants, refurbishing the malls, enlarging the ASDA store, enhancing rental values and working up plans for the extension of Marks & Spencer (including securing planning consent).
The centre was sold in 2006 for £70m, representing an unleveraged return of 14.7% per annum.
