The price reflects the massive interest in out-of-town retailing, consistently the best-performing sector in UK property. Pillar has bought the portfolio on behalf of itself and three other leading players: the Hercules Property Unit Trust; Morley Fund Management and the Junction Limited Partnership.

Pillar will take what many see as the two plum assets, major development sites in Manchester and Farnborough. The M8 Shopping Park in Manchester has a 313,000-sf planning consent which fits perfectly with Pillar's focus on developing larger shopping parks with open A1 consent.

HUT--managed by Pillar on behalf of investors including Schroders and USS--will buy four prime retail parks at Glasgow; North Shields near Newcastle; Walsall and Guildford. This brings its portfolio to 28 retail parks totalling over 5 million sf with a gross value of £1.8 billion ($2.9 billion).

Morley will be taking the bulk of the portfolio with over 870,000 sf in nine locations including three in London; Cardiff; Bristol; Crawley; Worthing and Brighton. Following this deal Morley will have more than £2 billion ($3.2 million) of out of town retail under management.

And the Junction Limited Partnership will acquire four prime retail parks with two in Bristol and one each in Glasgow and Worcester, together with a development site in Stoke-on-Trent. The Junction is managed by Capital & Regional with Morley the main investor. After the Chartwell deal its portfolio will comprise 20 parks totalling over 3.6 million sf worth about £700 million ($1.1 billion).

The agents advising the acquiring consortium were Smith Price and Wilkinson Williams, while Kingfisher was advised by CB Hillier Parker and CSFB.

Pillar's Chairman Raymond Mould said: "We are especially pleased to secure these sites as developing new out-of-town shopping parks is increasingly difficult due to planning restrictions."