Intelligent Real Estate Investments - Hines

New Sky Shop to Open at Buchanan Street, Glasgow

(GLASGOW, SCOTLAND) – Hines, the international real estate firm has announced that Sky, Europe's leading media and entertainment company, has chosen to open one of its first bricks and mortar retail shops at 229-249 Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

Opening on May 6, the new Sky shop will occupy 2,500 square feet and bring together Sky Mobile, Sky Broadband and Sky TV all in one place. The shop will include a dedicated ‘Customer Hub’ encouraging new customers to speak to advisors about the latest Sky innovations while existing customers can receive advice for their current products. The shop will also include an iSmash service facility, providing customers with repair and maintenance services on site.

The new shops are the first time Sky has had a full retail presence that covers all its business areas – Sky Mobile, Sky Broadband and Sky TV – and the first-time potential customers can fully sample the Sky Q experience.

The shop on Buchanan Street, Glasgow, will be the first shop of its kind in Scotland, focusing on customer experience alongside Sky’s products. The shop will be open plan to allow easy and safe interaction between advisors and customers.

All Sky shops will operate in line with the Government’s Covid-19 safety measures, including strict social distancing, mandatory facemasks and hand sanitizer available across the shop.

The building, which has a Grade A listed façade, is located in the heart of Glasgow’s retail core, directly opposite the city’s premier shopping center Buchanan Galleries and immediately adjacent to Buchanan Quarter.

Sharon Bloodworth, Director, Retail Asset Management, Hines UK, said: “Sky clearly recognizes the value of personal interaction with their customers and the selection of our Buchanan Street asset as the home for one of their new stores demonstrates the strength of the location. This commitment from Sky is a significant vote of confidence during challenging times for everyone in the retail sector, and we look forward to their doors opening to customers.”

Matthew Price, Retail Director, Sky UK, said: “We are delighted to be opening a new Sky Shop in Glasgow which will allow Sky to showcase the amazing benefits it has to offer to new and existing customers. The Buchanan Street location really stood out to us to open a new shop and we look forward to opening our doors and sharing the full experience with customers.”

Hines acquired 229-249 Buchanan Street in April 2016 as part of its investment mandate from Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) which targets prime high street retail assets across Europe.

The UK Hines team is currently active in the office, retail, student housing and logistics sectors, managing a combined UK property portfolio worth more than £3 billion (USD $4.2 billion) and located in London and key regional cities.

Savills and CBRE acted for Hines.

About Hines

Hines is a privately owned global real estate investment firm founded in 1957 with a presence in 240 cities in 27 countries. Hines oversees a portfolio of assets under management valued at approximately $160.9 billion¹, including $81.7 billion in assets under management for which Hines serves as investment manager, and $79.2 billion representing more than 172.9 million square feet of assets for which Hines provides third-party property-level services. Historically, Hines has developed, redeveloped or acquired approximately 1,450 properties, totaling over 485 million square feet. The firm has more than 180 developments currently underway around the world. With extensive experience in investments across the risk spectrum and all property types, and a pioneering commitment to ESG, Hines is one of the largest and most-respected real estate organizations in the world.

Since entering Europe in 1991, Hines has grown its European platform to include offices in 16 cities as well as a presence in 62 cities in 13 countries. Hines oversees a portfolio of assets under management valued at approximately €26.3 billion of assets under management in Europe, including €21.9 billion for which Hines serves as an investment manager and €4.4 billion representing more than 3.8 million square meters of assets for which Hines provides third-party property-level services, in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Visit www.hines.com for more information.

¹AUM includes both the global Hines organization as well as RIA AUM as of December 31, 2020.

About Bayerische Versorgungskammer

Bayerische Versorgungskammer is the competence and service center for occupational and communal pension schemes and Germany´s largest pension scheme group under public law. As a public authority of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, it is the joint executive body of twelve liberal professions´ and communal pension schemes. Bayerische Versorgungskammer covers about 2.4 million insured persons in total, with contributions of € 5.2 billion and about € 3.8 billion pension payments annually. It currently has € 97.2 billion assets under management (market value) and more than 1,420 employees.