The owners of Liffey Valley shopping centre are set to start a new bidding process for the investment property after a second round of offers failed to produce a bid acceptable to them.

Aviva Investors and Grosvenor, the property company owned by the Duke of Westminster, had originally intended to sell 50% of the property but investment sources said that the bids were made were for the entire centre and came in at about €300m, nearly €50m below what the owners were said to be seeking.

"As long-term investors, we will only sell Liffey Valley at a price that adequately reflects the first-class, underlying fundamentals of the asset, and will continue to work with our agents to achieve this ambition," they said in a statement.

Investors Bride Hall and London & Regional are understood to have been shortlisted for the second round of bids while there had also been interest from an Irish investor, believed to be the Kenny family who own Clancourt, whose assets include Aviva's Irish headquarters.

Liffey Valley had been valued at more than €600m at one stage but fears over
the future of rents being charged in Irish shopping
centres and the general
collapse of the property
market halved that price.

Despite the low levels of the bids, investment sources expressed happiness at the fact that three British bidders had initially chased the property, suggesting that they have a €1bn warchest between them which could find a home via property acquisitions here.

One senior source said there was now interest from Dutch, German, British, Middle Eastern and South African buyers in property acquisitions here.

Irish yields, the rent expressed as a percentage
of the selling price, are now more than 8% for relatively prime properties, compared to less than 4% in the property bubble.