Dublin property investment firm Warren Private Clients has bought a shopping centre in Edinburgh for €112 million (£80.5 million sterling). Simon Carswell, Finance Correspondent, reports.

The firm has raised about €28 million from its private investor clients for the deal and is borrowing the remaining €84 million of the purchase price from the German bank Eurohypo. Its borrowing costs, which were agreed before the credit crunch hit in August, will be around 5 per cent.

The price represents a yield - the centre's yearly rent expressed as a percentage of the purchase price - of almost 6.5 per cent, a strong figure given the pressure on British commercial property in light of tighter lending caused by the credit crunch.

Warren is spending almost €14 million less that the original asking price when the centre was put on the market late last year.

The shopping centre, Cameron Toll, covers about 24,155sq m (260,000sq ft) - about the same size as Scotch Hall shopping centre in Drogheda - and is located on 24 acres three kilometres south of Edinburgh.

Built in the 1980s and refurbished in 2000, the centre has 47 shops. The anchor tenants are supermarket retailer Sainsburys and department store BHS. The centre has a local catchment population of 400,000 people.

Spending on British commercial property has slowed in recent months due to the liquidity freeze. However, cash-rich private equity firms are finding strong value in deals as institutional investors sell large assets to generate cash-flow.

The purchase brings Warren's spending over the last fortnight to more than €210 million. The firm bought the second phase of The Park, a retail warehousing and shopping complex at Carrickmines in Dublin 18 last month for just under €100 million. It bought the planned second phase with AIB Private Banking.

The firm purchased the first phase of The Park in January 2006 for around €100 million.

Warren Private Clients pulled out of a deal to purchase an office building in the City of London for €83 million (£60 million) last month as its targeted returns for investors could not be met due to deteriorating market conditions.

Warren Private Clients was set up in 2002 by accountant Kevin Warren and lawyer Enda Connolly and has completed more than 30 deals worth over €3.5 billion.