NewRiver has announced the acquisition of Ellandi Management, an asset and development management business focused on UK retail and regeneration.

The acquisition has been made for an initial cash consideration of £5m, with an additional cash consideration of up to £4m subject to EBITDA performance.

NewRiver is a real estate investment trust (REIT) specialising in buying, managing and developing retail assets in the UK, and has a £540m portfolio comprising 24 community shopping centres and 12 retail parks. The group also manages 18 retail parks and 21 shopping centres on behalf of capital partners, taking its total assets under management (AuM) to £2bn.

Earlier this week, NewRiver reported an annual revenue of £65m in the year to 31 March, and an operating profit of £32.1m.

“We believe there will be considerable opportunities in the retail real estate market to accelerate the growth of our business from this point,” commented NewRiver chief executive, Allan Lockhart.

“By bringing together two high-quality teams with complementary skills and experience in asset management and regeneration, together with the balance sheet resources we have available, we are well positioned to participate in these opportunities, both on the balance sheet and through capital partnerships.”

The acquisition of Ellandi provides NewRiver’s existing capital partnership business with additional scale and diversification and is consistent with the group’s strategy to deliver capital-light earnings growth.

Ellandi’s two co-founders and owners, Morgan Garfield and Mark Robinson, will join NewRiver as head of capital partnerships and head of regeneration, respectively, with both also joining NewRiver’s executive committee.

Robinson added said: “Morgan and I are extremely proud of what the team at Ellandi have achieved to date in delivering sustainable change to the UK's retail places and believe this transaction creates an exciting opportunity to combine two market leading retail asset management businesses with shared growth ambitions.”

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