The Office of Fair Trading has cleared Capital Shopping Centres’ acquisition of the 487,000 sq ft Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham.
The OFT launched the examination into the £73m deal in January. It wanted to see if the acquisition, which took place late last year, breached any competition rules. If a breach was made, the matter could be referred to the Competition Commission.
CSC agreed to buy Westfield’s 75% interest in Broadmarsh for £55m early last November. Later that month it acquired the remaining 25% from Possfund Custodian Trustee, a fund managed by LaSalle Investment Management.
CSC already owns the Victoria Centre in the city, and has submitted plans for a 540,000 sq ft extension to increase the size of the mall to 1.5m sq ft.
A CSC spokesman said: “We are pleased with the outcome of the OFT’s review. This is good news for Nottingham. We can now look to bring forward proposals for complementary development to upgrade both Victoria Centre and Broadmarsh, which will also have a regenerative effect on the city as a whole. Given that we’ve only just received the OFT decision, we are not able to give any more detail yet, but as soon as we are in a position to do so we will.”
Lisa.pilkington@estatesgazette.com
