New Town site sold for bargain price

A PRIME residential property development site in the midst of Edinburgh's New Town has been sold by receivers for a "substantially" lower price than was paid for it in 2007.

Invista Real Estate, a listed property fund, has snapped up the former Edinburgh Academy boarding houses in Inverlieth from receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers. The three properties, a mix of 100-year-old arts and craft buildings, were initially acquired by Heritors, which paid 11.5 million for the buildings before falling into receivership in 2008. Heritors, a 250m fund, was a joint venture with HBOS.

Invista's opportunity fund said aims to "exploit real estate opportunities arising from mis-pricing". The fund will manage the properties in a joint venture with Scottish Land Holdings, a new fund established by former PFI specialist Richard Edlmann.