Hammerson has purchased a 50% stake in Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre for £218m as the firm pivots towards external acquisitions in a bid to scale the business.
The 50% stake in Manchester Arndale was acquired for £218m
The centre, which welcomes more than 45 million visitors a year, significantly increases Hammerson’s scale and geographic footprint.
The 50% stake was acquired from Palma Arndale BidCo and marks Hammerson’s first major external acquisition in over a decade. The deal is expected to be earnings accretive from day one and represents a topped-up net initial yield of 7.8%.
The acquisition was announced alongside the listed property giant’s half-year results, in which it reported strong earnings growth of 33%.
Hammerson CEO Rob Wilkinson
Rob Wilkinson, who took over as chief executive of Hammerson at the start of the year, told Property Week that the shopping centre asset was “very attractive” for the business and would hopefully be “the first of more acquisitions to come”.
He added: “[Arndale] fits perfectly with our strategy and our existing portfolio. We have no exposure in Manchester today, so it really adds to our portfolio. Manchester itself is a very vibrant and growing city: it’s the second biggest retail destination in the UK just behind London.”
Wilkinson described the firm’s strategy as a “continuation of where the company has come from” under the leadership of previous chief executive Rita-Rose Gagné. In 2025, the firm was heavily focused on joint-venture buyouts and the sale of non-core assets.
Wilkinson said it was the “natural next stage” for the firm to look at acquiring assets externally. “We are staying within the fairway here [with Arndale], so it’s a very natural evolution of our strategy. We’re very much looking to continue scaling our operations because it makes us more efficient and helps drive earnings.”
The update for the six months to 30 June 2026 revealed a 40% increase in total rental income and EPRA earnings growth of 33% to £64m.
Notably, the group raised its FY26 EPRA earnings guidance to growth of 27% to around £132m.
This is on the back of strong leasing during the period, with £18.5m of headline rent secured at 52% above previous passing rent, while occupancy rose one percentage point to 96% – the firm’s highest H1 occupancy for seven years.
Wilkinson said the Arndale acquisition had boosted the firm’s strong underlying performance for the year to date and means it is now guiding FY26 earnings to be 27% greater than FY25.
He added that the firm was “very pleased” with the overall half-year performance and earnings growth, which he said had ultimately been driven “by the operational performance at our destinations”.
He added: “Footfall is up about 3% on average, compared with national benchmarks, which are basically flat across the UK. That operational performance has really helped drive part of the earnings growth, and that has given us confidence to up the guidance we have for 2026 to £132m.
“Part of that is the strategy we set out at the beginning of the year: to scale the business and generate further operational efficiencies.
“The other thing is shopping centres: the operational side and occupancy have improved dramatically in the last couple of years, but there’s still not so many people out there acquiring, and that’s allowing us to invest in this asset. For 12 years or so, people haven’t been investing in shopping centres, so the muscle memory of being able to manage assets of this size and complexity is quite limited.”
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