NewRiver Reit PLC (LON: NRR) have seen their shares spike on Monday, after the firm announced the purchase of a Northern Ireland retail park for £40 million.

NewRiver Reit is a firm focused on real estate in the retail and leisure property sector, and boasts an impressive portfolio of 29 shopping centers, 22 retail warehouses, 14 high street units and 359 public houses.

Shares in the FTSE250 (INDEXFTSE: MCX) listed firm spiked 1.78% to 182p. 25/11/19 11:31BST.

The firm confirmed the purchase of Lisburn Retail Park for £40 million from property rival Intu Properties PLC (LON: INTU).

The park has 231,000 square foot of retail space as well as 1,200 car park spaces and 18 acres of development land.

The site boasts anchor tenets such as Sainsbury’s (LON: SBRY) and B&Q, owned by Kingfisher PLC (LON: KGF) who have seen their shares slip last week.

We are pleased to announce that we have exchanged contracts to acquire Sprucefield Retail Park,” NewRiver Chief Executive Officer Allan Lockhart said. “This high-quality asset will generate £3.7 million of annualised net property income, which will be highly accretive to underlying funds from operations and significant in improving our dividend cover, which is our key priority.”

“In addition to an attractive long-term income return, the development land offers the opportunity to deliver significant capital growth, leading to a very attractive total return,” Lockhart added.

Intu Chief Executive Officer Matthew Roberts said: “We announced our new strategy at the interim results in July. A key element of this is fixing the balance sheet which includes creating liquidity through disposals. We are pleased to conclude this transaction, which along with the part-disposal of intu Derby and other sundry asset sales in 2019 brings the year to date disposals total to £268 million.”

The sale comes at no surprise as Intu have seen their shares crash following a period of poor trading.

Where competitors are making gains, this acquisition will come at a pleasing time for shareholders of NewRiver.

In the market rivals have been busy, Growthpoint (JSE: GRT) are close to formalizing a deal for UK based Capital and Regional (LON: CAL) in a reported £150 million deal.