AnaCap Financial Partners (“AnaCap”), a leading specialist mid-market investor and RivingtonHark, a UK retail asset manager focused on ensuring the future sustainability of towns and cities, announce a joint venture to acquire St John’s Shopping Centre (“St John’s”), a 540,000 sq. ft prime property in central Liverpool.

St John’s is located in the heart of Liverpool, between Liverpool’s two main train stations and the main bus station where significant public sector infrastructure works are being completed. The centre is currently 97% occupied with over 100 tenants, and the scheme is also the home of the St John’s Beacon, one of the UK’s most well-known and iconic buildings.

St John’s has benefited from significant renovation and refurbishment investment over the past decade, and AnaCap and RivingtonHark are looking to continue investing to meet the ongoing demands of a leading citycentre shopping centre.

The investment in St John’s sits within AnaCap’s opportunistic real estate strategy where it is capitalising on its extensive network to identify attractive, well located properties across Europe. It also epitomises AnaCap’s approach of leveraging dedicated, in-house specialist investment and asset management expertise to work alongside best-in-class operating partners targeted for each investment.

Sebastien Wigdo, Managing Director at AnaCap, commented: “This acquisition represents an exciting opportunity for AnaCap to invest in a prime and stabilised retail asset in the UK, demonstrating our ability to identify value in a sector which may have been previously overlooked. We were particularly attracted to the asset given its high quality location and strong tenant mix of both local and national retailers, a large number of whom have shown a long-term commitment to the location during Covid.

Mark Williams, Executive Director at RivingtonHark, added: “We are glad to partner with AnaCap and are looking forward to engage with our tenants, the Liverpool City Council and the wider community to continue to invest in the asset and create long term value for all stakeholders.”