To Market, To Market: Asset Managers in the UK Retail Sector investigates the financial powers behind Elephant and Castle’s remarkable transformation. The area’s beloved shopping centre was demolished in 2020 and since then, many of its traders have faced hardship, displacement and insecurity in their temporary market. The shopping centre sat at the centre of Britain’s most important hub for the Latin American diaspora and provided goods, services and employment opportunities for Southwark’s multiracial working-class community and the local economy.
Get Living plc, the developer and operator behind the Shopping Centre’s regeneration scheme, is the first entity in a cascading network of extractive private ownership, spanning Canadian and Australian pension funds, Dutch asset managers and German insurance companies. This report uncovers who profits as the existing local community struggles, and how the government’s private capital-led investment model runs counter to supporting place-based economic development.
To gain a deeper understanding of London’s Retail Sector and the financial powers behind Elephant and Castle’s remarkable transformation, you can read the report in full below!
Author: Adam Almeida
Project Leader: Patria Román-Velázquez
Collaborators: Jerry Flynn, Sarah Goldzweig, Santiago Peluffo Soneyra, Natalia Pérez and Sophie Wall
Graphic Designer: Gabriela Mac’Allister
In partnership with: Impact on Urban Health