UK Commercial Property Trust has bought St George's retail park in Leicester from a fund managed by JP Morgan Asset Management for £49.9 mln (EUR 59 mln).

UK Commercial Property Trust is managed by Ignis Real Estate.

St George's offers around 15,500 m2 of retail space and 522 parking spaces. The retail tenants include Wickes, PC World, Currys, Comet, Aldi, Pets at Home, Next, Brantano, Toys r Us, Mothercare and KFC. The property generates a gross annual rent of £3.1 mln.

'The St George's Retail Park is an excellent site with a very high quality tenant profile, providing an attractive yield of over 6% on our investment. It also offers significant potential to build the rental income through a programme of proactive asset management,' said Christopher Hill, chairman of UKCPT.

The purchase of St George's Retail Park completes the investment of the £150 mln equity raised by the company in February 2010. Robert Boag, senior investment director at Ignis Real Estate and manager of UKCPT, said that the latest acquisition increases UKCPT's exposure to retail warehousing, which is a sector the company believes will continue to offer strong returns.

The acquisition is typical of UKCPT's strategy of acquiring core income producing investments with potential for asset management that will support and improve the company's dividend.

BNP Paribas Real Estate and Sanders Cartwright represented Ignis Real Estate/UK Commercial Property Trust in the transaction.