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Our growth is driven by a high-quality portfolio, strong partnerships and data-driven insights. Explore our case studies to see how we achieved this growth in the past year.
Acquired in June 2016, Cuckoo Bridge is a leading retail park in Dumfries, Scotland, with a retail catchment of c. 89,000 residents living within a 30-minute drive time.
Our occupiers are a mix of grocery, DIY, discount, homeware and a drive thru coffee pod, providing a well-located and accessible retail offer with a range of affordable goods.
Active asset management
This year we secured a 15-year lease with Sainsbury’s on improved rental terms, 60% above previous rent and valuer's ERV. Sainsbury’s will take a 48,100 sq ft supermarket, swiftly re-activating the former Homebase, creating the first Sainsbury’s in the local area and new jobs.
Post year end, we secured planning consent for a new 7,500 sq ft Next store, demonstrating the strong demand for the asset and our retail park portfolio.
Since acquisition we have completed a lease extension with Dunelm, introduced a new Food Warehouse and Bensons for Beds, and created a Click & Collect pod for Next.
NewRiver ownership
occupancy; fully let on completion of new lettings
occupational cost ratio
in-store sales growth accounting for online spend contribution
Located in the heart of an affluent suburb of Glasgow, The Avenue is a popular community shopping centre providing a mix of both leading national brands and quality independent local retailers, anchored by ASDA and M&S.
The centre is an immaculate and bright retail destination and benefits from over 900 free car parking spaces, as well as being well-serviced by local bus routes.
Active asset management
Our retailers perform well here, and during the year lease renewals and new lettings collectively generated £909,000 in annualised income, a +2.7% increase above the valuer’s ERV, and included Timpson, Boots, Yours Clothing and Santander. Marks & Spencer’s confirmed their long-term commitment to the centre through a major store re-fit and signing of a new 15-year lease.
Activating value on surplus land and helping create new homes for the area, we exchanged on an agreement for sale of land to a housing developer, providing a capital receipt and supporting future spend for the centre.
NewRiver ownership
occupational cost ratio
occupancy
in-store sales growth accounting for online spend contribution
How did you get into retail?
I genuinely love retail. My first retail job was with Burtons in 1994, part time at university. I remember one early job was as a denim expert, training the team on how to fold and sell denim.
I took the fast-track course in management and spent 20 years working in the West End of London for various companies, including Topshop on Oxford Street. I learnt a lot about what good retail looks like.
I then went into department store management in Oxford Street Debenhams and in Westfield, White City. The natural progression was shopping centre management. I was curious; having been a tenant for all those years, what it would be like from the other side as a centre manager. I’ve managed the centre for three years and have been a shopping centre manager for five years.
Starting off on the tenant side helps so much because it gives me a better understanding of what our occupiers need to be successful, and I have first-hand experience with operations and deliveries so I can add more value to the tenants. I find the support side of my role rewarding – working with smaller independents as well as larger nationals and helping all of the managers and owners to be part of one successful destination. Everyone should be on the same team – we all want customers to flock to the centre and spend in the shops. We have The Mall app for our tenants and have quarterly tenant meetings to discuss updates on how the previous quarter has been and progress on the development - helping tenants stay enthused and feel included.
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Very positive. I remember meeting NewRiver’s Head of Asset Management for the first time, around six months before the acquisition. My first impression was great, she was so personable, knowledgeable and was genuinely excited about the potential acquisition.
Since then, every interaction with each member of the NewRiver team has been great. Like Capital & Regional before, it’s clear NewRiver operates similarly and wants the best for every centre. It’s been the smoothest transition.
The communications from NewRiver during the whole process were good and I was able to share with the rest of the team, helping everyone to feel informed every step of the way.
Our USP is the bond between the centre and our local community. Over the years, we’ve built excellent relationships with the local charities, community groups, and the local council. Walthamstow has been through mass gentrification over the last 10/15 years, and it just continues and evolves.
Our local council are brilliant; we’ve done a lot of great work together. The collaboration between us sets us apart. The community has a significantly strong bond and really pulls together and stands as one.
The council are very forward-thinking and have done a lot of work in the town, for example with the Soho Theatre which they acquired, a Grade II listed landmark building, which hosted the Beatles and the Rolling Stones back in the 60s. We have great relationships with the operators in the town and around the centre, and these kinds of investment are beneficial for the whole town.
We have agreed to work with the council and other key stakeholders for a social investment fund which focuses on how we can make Walthamstow even stronger, and support those who have come out of prison, or need different skills, getting back into work, those who aren’t in education, who haven’t had any training. This is an exciting new project.
We are a local community shopping centre and have approximately 1,000 staff from across our tenants. A huge number of these are from the borough and were recruited locally.
Portsmouth University has come to Walthamstow and plans to have 3,000 students by 2030. Their campus is just up opposite the station.
We have completed Phase 1 of the centre’s redevelopment – the building of the two residential tower blocks – 495 apartments.
Phase 2 is the station box, which is underway now and will create an additional 80,000 sq ft of retail and 43 residential units. TfL will then build the station, which will improve access and pedestrian flow, and we expect that to increase our footfall.
Phases 3 & 4 will extend the centre onto the square and around the side to Lidl, with some additional retail, some low rise residential and a new public square, to reflect how the centre has transformed over the years.
All of this will make 17&Central even more of a destination and we have various major national brands seeking to come to the centre. We’re looking at the transformation being complete in the next five years.
Why did you choose an apprenticeship?
My journey at NewRiver began in 2017, joining as a school leaver as the business’s first apprentice through WhiteHat, a programme run by Multiverse. I was really drawn to the idea of an apprenticeship, learning on the job while gaining hands on experience felt like a valuable and practical way to build skills.
During my two years as Business Administration Apprentice, I was fortunate to gain a breadth of exposure into the real estate sector, working closely with the property and finance teams, and with the support of NewRiver, I embarked on my second apprenticeship specialising in the real estate sector, going on to gain my associate RICS qualification.
What did you value most about your apprenticeship?
An apprenticeship provides a student with hands on experience allowing them to apply their learnings to everyday tasks and projects, it's an intense but highly practical learning path. The team at NewRiver made a huge impact to this – taking time to explain and giving me autonomy to grow – and the culture is fun and collaborative too which makes a big difference.
The opportunities and support NewRiver have provided me with have helped me carve out a career path I didn’t know existed at school, and the career progression within the business has been exceptional.
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With the support of NewRiver, I am currently in my third year of a four-year BSc (Hons) Real Estate Management degree at the University of the Built Environment, which includes the opportunity to complete my APC. I aspire to build a career in commercial real estate asset management, a field I find particularly compelling due to its dynamic nature, the diversity of stakeholders involved, the evolving landscape of retail, and the strategic challenges presented by managing retail assets.
The apprenticeship programmes I have completed have all been online which can feel isolating however we have a collegiate team, and I was also encouraged to engage with NewRiver’s key stakeholders as there are a number of apprentices across the business’s network, that has been beneficial.
Grab the opportunity with both hands!
Summary of programme:
▪ Level 3 Diploma in Business Administration (October 2017 – April 2019, 18 months): Completed foundational training in business operations and administration.
▪ Level 3 Commercial Property Surveying Technician Apprenticeship (September 2019 – September 2021, 2 years): Gained practical and technical knowledge of commercial property surveying, leading to eligibility for Associate RICS (AssocRICS) designation.
▪ BSc (Hons) Real Estate Management (Currently studying, 4-year undergraduate programme): This accredited degree provides a pathway to completing the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence (APC), enabling progression toward full Chartered Surveyor (MRICS) status and a career in commercial real estate asset management.
Best Asset Management Initiative
Background:
When our Capital Partnership team first took on Midsummer Place, it was battling high vacancy, a stalled development and unsustainable leases.
The centre, once a hub for high-end fashion, was struggling to adapt to shifting consumer habits. Today the centre is a thriving retail destination offering retail, food & beverage and leisure – and is now a place shoppers want to come, and retailers want to be.
The asset management strategy is delivering – with a well curated and enhanced occupier mix leading to a high occupancy, including the reactivation of former vacant space; together with the successful redevelopment of The Boulevard into a vibrant F&B quarter and quality upgrades to the physical environment.
Key achievements:
Income stabilised: Leases renewed on market terms, much improved occupancy and enhanced service charge management – delivering immediate financial stability.
Curated occupier mix: Attracted new operators including Apple, upsized existing brands, and secured new anchors including Sports Direct, Flannels and Lane7, all contributing to driving a £2 million net operating income uplift.
Strategic investments: Re-let 126,000 sq ft of former Debenhams and re-energised The Boulevard into a vibrant food & beverage hub with eight new pods offering artisan and international cuisine – generating healthy turnovers. By leveraging the space’s horseshoe shape, high ceilings and natural light, the team created a welcoming environment with street furniture, providing a place for visitors to relax and ultimately increase dwell time.
Community & social impact: Supported local businesses through pop-ups, free table tennis initiatives with Table Tennis England, and social enterprise schemes. Moreover, over 70 new jobs were created following The Boulevard’s transformation.
Q&A with Lawrence Fisher, Head of Strategy and Investment Analysis
How does NewRiver use data across the business?
Robust data from across our entire business underpins our strategic decision-making.
The combination of our market-leading platform, extensive geographical retail footprint and investment into data, including our partnership with Lloyds Bank, provides us with an unparalleled insight into how the UK consumer spends across the country.
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Access to high-quality data allows us to make better decisions, from capital deployment to leasing, tenant mix, marketing, car park pricing and an overall asset risk assessment.
We have access to multiple data streams including:
▪ Market-leading customer transactional data from Lloyds Bank, at portfolio level as well as national and regional macro data.
▪ Yardi, a fully integrated property management and accounting system, which is our single source of portfolio and financial data. We continue to develop additional insight that can be derived from this, including the creation of an interactive dashboard for our real estate and finance teams through a system called Data Freedom, our comprehensive data lake which provides real-time leasing metrics including rent collection and arrears, as well as valuations.
▪ National metrics (e.g. inflation, changes in house prices, private rents, employment rate, household savings, population projections) inform our understanding of macro-economic factors
▪ Portfolio-wide footfall data including regional and national benchmarks, complemented by car park usage data
▪ High-quality mobility data from Visitor Insights
▪ Demographic and retailer performance data from CACI
▪ MSCI real estate index data allows us to benchmark portfolio performance for key metrics such as capital growth, income return, total return, net initial yields and equivalent yields
▪ Income Analytics allows us to proactively measure, quantify and manage the degree of retailer risk at a corporate level
▪ Co-Star supplements our research and analysis by providing information around property records, ownership, transactions, leases, news, trends and analytics
▪ ESG metrics including electricity usage and EPC information
We continue to invest in our systems and team skill-sets to carefully manage the increasing data volume we have access to whilst ensuring that we maintain strong cyber security.
We receive quarterly spend data from Lloyds Bank across c. 85% of our portfolio by value. This data provides us with:
▪ store-by-store sales turnover, including the online contribution from that store
▪ where customers come from – and where they do not
▪ frequency of visits
▪ average transaction values
▪ demographic profiling of customers
▪ where customers typically make their first purchase, their second purchase and beyond
▪ which neighbouring stores are attracting spend from our customers.
As well as receiving this data for our portfolio, we also use it to inform investment decisions for potential acquisitions.
We feed this data into granular bespoke models facilitating our understanding of current profitability and rental affordability as well as forecasting future leasing events, ensuring that any rental variance assumptions within our business plans are based on robust evidence.
The application and analysis of this data touches almost every asset management decision that we make and significantly can enhance our ability to make astute decisions in the future, to further enhance our asset business plans.
We combine detailed knowledge of current performance with contributing external elements to model future behaviour and performance. We assess factors including neighbouring developments, both commercial and residential, to model the predicted profile of new residents, to understand the quantum of potential future spend available to a location. This informs what the optimum mix of retail, F&B and leisure would be to meet the needs of both consumers and occupiers, to ensure we create space that will be relevant for the medium and long term.
This in-depth analysis also informs our risk analysis to determine whether an asset should be held as a long-term investment.