The Square shopping centre in Tallaght has been sold for €130 million, The Irish Times has learned. Eagle Street Partners, the pan-European real estate investment and asset manager founded by Shane Scully and the late Justin Bickle, has partnered with Arrow Capital in the acquisition of the facility.
The completion of the deal comes just over two months on from Eagle Street’s selection as preferred bidder and four months on from the appointment of receivers to the south Dublin scheme.
The Square’s outgoing owner, Oaktree Capital, had been in exclusive talks earlier this year to sell the centre to Texas-headquartered real estate investor Hines for up to €129 million.
That deal encountered a roadblock however following an objection from one of the US private equity giant’s lenders to the extent of the proposed discount to be applied to the scheme’s already heavily discounted guide price.
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Having paid €250 million to acquire the Tallaght shopping centre from Nama in 2019, Oaktree put it on the market in June 2023 for €170 million.
While the proposed sale to Hines is understood to have been acceptable at the time to Oaktree and the scheme’s main lender, AIB, negotiations between the parties stalled after London-headquartered M & G Investments voiced its objections to the deal as a sale of the centre at such a heavy discount would see the mezzanine or junior debt it provided for The Square’s purchase being wiped out.
[ Eagle Street picked as preferred bidder for the Square in TallaghtOpens in new window ]
AIB moved subsequently to maximise the recovery of the €140 million in loans it had out against the centre however, when it appointed Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of Interpath Advisory as joint receivers. The move into receivership was made with the consent and co-operation of Oaktree.
Oaktree paid €250 million in 2019 for a controlling interest of 90 per cent of The Square’s shops.
The figure, while significant, was still a long way off the indicative €640 million valuation the south Dublin scheme achieved in 2007 when financier Derek Quinlan’s Quinlan Private sold a stake of around 51 per cent to developer Noel Smyth for €320 million.
The Square has over 130 retail units and a 13-screen cinema distributed across 53,000sq m (570,486 sq ft) of space, along with planning permission to extend and a site potentially suitable for housing.
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