A 50% stake in Cabot Circus, Bristol city centre’s prime shopping development, has been bought by the property arm of French insurance giant AXA for nearly £268m.
UK property giant Land Securities, which funded the development of Cabot Circus with Hammerson, released a statement saying it had exchanged contracts for the sale of its half ownership to Paris-based AXA Real Estate Investment Managers.
The deal also includes the Quakers Friars restaurant quarter, a number of adjoining shops, student accommodation and the 149-bedroom Future Inn hotel. 
Cabot Circus, which opened in September 2008 just as the recession was starting to hit consumer spending, has been hailed as one of the UK’s best city centre retail schemes, both architecturally and in its regeneration of a previously rundown area of Bristol’s 1950s Broadmead retail area.
The 1,370,000 sq ft scheme proved popular with shoppers and retailers and propelled Bristol into the UK’s top 20 shopping destinations. The city had previous been regarded as having a poor retail offering considering its population and large catchment area.
The centre’s occupancy rate today is 95% and it has an annual footfall of 18m people. Some 125 tenants ranging from Harvey Nichols and Apple to small independent retailers have space in the centre, which has a catchment area with a population of 2.4m and a market potential of more than £1bn.
Hammerson, based in London, will take on Cabot Circus’s management after the deal is completed. The firm also owns Birmingham's giant Bullring city centre retail scheme.
Land Securities said the assets sold to AXA Real Estate produce a net rental income of £17.3m. They include a 50% stake in the 830,000 sq ft covered Cabot Circus shopping centre, the 170,000 sq ft Quakers Friars luxury goods and restaurant quarter, and 370,000 sq ft of adjoining high street shops.
Property investors have been buying large developments across Europe that combine shopping with leisure activities. AXA Real Estate manages 30-plus shopping centres worth more than €8.5bn (£6.8bn).
AXA Real Estate head of European transactions Laurent Jacquemin said: “We remain convinced of the ability of the retail sector to provide secure, long-term income streams. We will continue to identify and actively invest in prime retail assets across Europe.”
Land Securities, also based in London and the UK's largest commercial property firm, recently bought a 30% stake in the massive Bluewater shopping centre in Kent for £656m. It also has 50% of Cardiff's St David's retail scheme, which opened a year after Cabot Circus.
