A MAJOR shopping centre in Kent is to be put on the market, following an agreement between the National Asset Management Agency and a group of Irish investors, including some who had invested up to €8 billion with Davy Private Clients at the height of the boom.

CBRE and Jones Lang LaSalle have been appointed to complete “a strategic review” of the Pentagon Centre in Chatham, Kent, but the report is expected to lead to a sell-off of the 330,000sq ft property which was bought for nearly €140 million in early 2007.

The Chatham development was the first of a series of investments that had been planned by BHL, an alliance between Meath-based developers Duignan and McCarthy, and Davy Private Clients, which represented some of the then richest people in Ireland.

BHL had intended developing the centre, before the loans that bought it came under the control of Nama.

Among the centre’s anchor tenants are Sainsbury’s, HMV, Game and the Body Shop.

The local Medway Council favours a speedy move since a redevelopment of the town centre development is central to its plan to regenerate Chatham which depended for centuries on the industry around building ships for the navy.

BHL had drawn up redevelopment plans of its own.