Merry Hill On The Market For £250M As Consortium Banks On Retail Resurgence
Adviser Knight Frank has been appointed to market the 1.4M SF West Midlands superregional shopping centre Merry Hill for about £250M on behalf of a consortium of lenders. The move follows a major upgrade programme.
It is the second top 10 UK mall to come to market in recent weeks, after investors put a 50% stake in Manchester Arndale up for sale, with suitors including retailer Frasers Group.
The owners of the Brierley Hill mall include Wells Fargo and AXA Investment Managers, who were lenders to the previous owner, Intu Properties, before it went into administration. The centre had £436M of debt secured against it before the administration.
Merry Hill is the ninth-largest UK mall by spend and has undergone a £125M investment and expansion programme over the past few years.
Last month, Merry Hill announced that it was 95% let after confirming 30K SF of leasing deals across 11 tenants. Brands taking or expanding space in the lower level of the scheme’s southern mall include a 10K SF Hey Bargain, while health and beauty retailer Savers has relocated into a 5K SF store and Greggs has upsized into a 2K SF space.
Merry Hill has also seen national debuts from Harvey Norman and XF Gym, plus a revamped, 100K SF Marks & Spencer. It had further recent lease renewals totalling 15K SF, including by Shoe Zone, Bodycare, Bonmarché, Global Mobile, Card Factory, Subway and MyPhone.
Over the years, Merry Hill has changed hands multiple times. Local brothers Don and Roy Richardson completed the first phase of the development in 1985 and subsequently sold their stake to Mountleigh in 1990. But the company ran into financial trouble, and Chelsfield took over in the early 1990s, later partnering with Westfield, which then sold a 50% stake to Queensland Investment Corporation.
Intu Properties bought Westfield's holding in 2014 and QIC's in 2016, only to enter administration in 2020. Ellandi was appointed to manage Merry Hill and oversaw the first £50M of investment before CBRE’s Sovereign Centros took over asset management in 2022. Leasing agents are Time Retail Partners, JLL and Font Real Estate.
Footfall in 2025 is set to top 15.5 million for the first time, in part thanks to a newly completed £15M leisure quarter, the owners said.
“Merry Hill is primed for the next stage of its journey, with several initiatives planned to cement its position in the super-regional hierarchy,” the consortium said in a statement. “Consequently, now is the right time for a new owner to take on an asset that is thriving to realise further value.”
