Charitable foundation puts 190,874 sq ft Wirral retail park on the market with a price tag of £50.7m. Tony McDonough reports

Property agents have been tasked with finding a buyer for a 190,874 sq ft retail park in Wirral.

Junction One Retail Park, close to the M53 motorway in Wallasey, has 10 retail units that are all fully occupied. Current tenants include retailers such as M&S Food, Aldi and Poundland.

Owner of the park, the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation is seeking to offload the asset and has instructed agents at Staunton Whiteman to find a buyer. The price tag for the freehold interest is £50.7m.

Albert Gubay is also the owner of the huge Liverpool Shopping Park, just outside the city centre off Edge Lane. Last year it secured planning consent for an £11m project to extend the park by a further 70,000 sq ft taking total floorspace to 235,000 sq ft.

As well as the retail units Junction One also includes a drive thru fast-food unit. Staunton Whiteman says in its brochure: “The scheme is an example of what the very best prime modern retail park should be.

“The recent letting of the former Carpetright unit to Superdrug, at a headline rent of £26 per sq ft (£24.70 per sq ft net effective), demonstrates that the scheme is reversionary.”

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It adds that a purchase at this price would show an initial yield (annual rental income as a percentage of capital value) of 6%.

This would revert to 6.48% based upon an estimated rental value of just over £3.5m per year (which accounts for all fixed increases and rental caps) and an equivalent yield of 6.29%, net of purchaser’s costs of 6.8%.