Aviva Investors offloads stake in Dublin’s Liffey Valley for €250m
AVIVA Investors has sold its majority stake in a Dublin mall in a deal worth over €250m (£205m), it announced yesterday, in the latest sign of a resurgent Irish property market.
The firm, which developed the Liffey Valley site 15 years ago, had looked to exit its 72.8 per cent holding in 2011 but scrapped the sale to allow time for market confidence to recover.
HSBC Alternative Investments Limited (Hail) and US property group Hines, which built Cannon Place in the City, are buying the stake, the companies said yesterday. They will own the property alongside Grosvenor Estates, which is keeping hold of its 27.2 per cent holding.
Hines opened an office in Ireland in 2011 to search for properties as the market began to recover from the 2008 slump. Dublin house prices rose 11 per cent last year and commercial properties are finally on the ascent after six years of falling values.
“The sale of Aviva Investors’ majority stake in the Liffey Valley shopping centre is the largest single asset deal in Ireland since the recession. Aviva Investors moved quickly to take advantage of the significant weight of money chasing product in Ireland,” said Mike Cutteridge, senior director of international capital markets at DTZ, which was advising Aviva on the deal.