The new owners of Silverburn have welcomed the addition of the shopping centre on Glasgow's south side as a "particularly strong retail opportunity".

International real estate company Eurofund and London-based private equity real estate manager Henderson Park announced this morning that they have closed the deal on the £140 million purchase that was first announced in December. The pair are buying the 100,000sq m centre from property group Hammerson and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, who purchased Silverburn through a 50-50 joint venture for nearly £300m in 2009.

First opened in 2007, Silverburn is Scotland's newest shopping centre and sits in a catchment of 2.1 million people. It consists of 125 grocery, retail and leisure units with brands such as Next, Marks & Spencer and TK Maxx, and has historically generated annuall footfall of circa 15 million.

READ MORE: Silverburn shopping centre sold for £140m

Sitting on 67 acres with 4,500 car parking spaces, the site is also home to Scotland's largest Tesco store.

Alberto Esguevillas, UK chief executive of Eurofund, said: “Scotland represents a particularly strong retail opportunity in the UK, with Glasgow recently being named one of the two most resilient retail destinations in the country.

"This is demonstrated in the strong interest we are seeing from retailers and brands wanting to expand or establish a presence in Silverburn.”

President Ian Sandford added: “We are pleased to have had to opportunity to co-invest in Silverburn along with our JV partners at Henderson Park.

"Silverburn represents a fantastic opportunity to take a good centre and transform it into the leading asset in its catchment. Eurofund’s vision is to utilise our team’s strong asset management and operational expertise to unlock latent value and reposition Silverburn as the leading retail, leisure and F&B destination in Scotland.”