Camden Market put up for sale for £1.5bn

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Pictures: Rajiv Nair

The iconic fourth popular tourist destination in London’s, Camden Market,  attracting over 250,000 people each week, is a 16-acre patchwork of more than 1, 000 stalls, bars, shops, and cafes associated with counter-cultural movements from punks to hippies, in north London that has been put up for sale which could net as much as £1.5bn. Investment bank Rothschild & Co is overseeing the sale process. The market, situated north of the Hampstead Road and located in the former Pickfords stables and Grade II-listed horse hospital, is also the livelihood of many small businesses, nestled next to Camden Lock, Regent’s Canal, and beside Camden’s railway bridge. Famous for their cosmopolitan image, products sold on the stall include crafts, clothing, bric-a-brac, and fast food. The markets, originally temporary stalls only, extended to a mixture of stalls and fixed premises. In 2015, Urban Markets Company acquired Camden Lock and paid about £400m for the one-acre site, the joint venture between the founders of Camden Lock and Millitarne Retail Resorts International, the retail developers was financed by Brockton Capital, a real estate private equity fund. Camden Lock is set to have a £20 million makeover to transform it into a traditional arts and crafts centre for Londoners. The Stables Market was owned by Bebo Kobo, Richard Caring, and Elliot Bernerd of Chelsfield until 2014 and was sold for $685 million to Market Tech PLC, a UK AIM-listed public company.  Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi started buying property in the Camden  Market area and by March 2015, having purchased the four most important of the six sections of the market, he announced plans to invest £300 million in developing the market area by 2018.