Finance firm buys up land in Witney (From Witney Gazette)

Finance firm buys up land in Witney

3:10pm Tuesday 29th January 2008 in Witney By David Horne

ONE of the giants in the UK's real estate business has bought a large area scheduled for Witney's next major expansion.

Invista, the country's largest fund management group listed on the Stock Exchange, said it had exchanged contracts for 50 acres of mainly agricultural land to the west of the town.

And in another big money move affecting the future of Witney, it has also emerged that the town's new multi-million-pound Marriotts Close shopping centre will be in the hands of a property investment firm, owned by the founder of the Carphone Warehouse.

Invista, based in London, but with offices in France and the Channel Isles, has secured the land earmarked in West Oxfordshire's Local Plan for new housing development, along with some business and recreation facilities, and a new link to the A40 at Curbridge.

The development, following the completion of the town's latest expansion with the Madley Park housing estate in north east Witney, was expected to be brought forward over the next three to five years, said Invista spokesman, Dido Laurimore.

The west Witney land has been acquired for an unspecified sum in a joint venture with Land Planning Group, an Isle of Man-based developer and specialist in assembly of large sites.

It is the first acquisition made by Invista under a new real estate opportunity fund, worth £250m, seeking investments in both the UK and European property markets.

The group won the title of Property Manager of the Year 2007, and has over £9bn of assets under its management. It has also recently formed a joint venture with Simons Developments, which is carrying out the Marriotts Close redevelopment, for a scheme in west Wales. The future of that scheme has now been underpinned by the London-based Kandahar group, owned by David Ross, founder of the Carphone Warehouse.

The move, a result of transactions in the big money property investment market, has been welcomed this week by the company which is actually building the £40m scheme. Luke Pickering, managing director of Simons Developments, told the Gazette that it was 'good news for Witney'.

Major shopping centres, once built, are generally run by financial institutions. The Marriotts Close development attracted the keen interest of one of the world's big banks, Morgan Stanley, based in the United States.

But it has now withdrawn its funding, after losses of £2.9bn in the American sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

Mr Pickering said: "It is good news for Witney, because it will be in the hands of one investor.

"It won't be a faceless investment company or bank overseas.

"Kandahar is financing ourselves in the scheme, so they have a direct interest in how it goes ahead and is managed afterwards."

As previously announced in the Gazette, the Marriotts Close centre will have space for 15 retail outlets, seven of which have already been taken, including M&S and Debenhams, as well as cafes and restaurants, and a five-screen cinema.

It should be open in September next year.