Land Sec sells Scottish real estate to HSBC for $350 mln

* Sells the Centre, Almondvale West Retail Park

* HSBC buys as part of 'Club Deal Programme'

* Land Sec. to focus on big regional, London assets (Adds detail from statements, quotes, shares)

By Simon Jessop

LONDON, Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Land Securities Group has sold Scottish real estate worth 224.1 million pounds ($350.87 million) to HSBC as it focuses on larger commercial property assets in and around London.

HSBC Alternative Investments, a unit of the British bank, bought the Centre and Almondvale West Retail Park in Livingston on behalf of some of its private banking clients.

Investors are increasingly turning to real estate and infrastructure investments as they face limited returns from stocks and bonds.

Land Sec. said the Centre was Scotland's second-largest covered shopping centre, with more than 1 million square feet, and was home to around 160 retailers, including Primark, Debenhams (Other OTC: DBHSY - news) and BHS.

"The sale ... follows a number of recent transactions demonstrating our clear commitment to reshaping our shopping centre portfolio to focus on dominant regional and Greater London assets," Scott Parsons, Managing Director of Retail at Land Securities (LSE: LAND.L - news) said in a statement.

Land Securities is the UK's largest listed commercial property company, owning and managing more than 25 million square feet of property, from shopping centres to offices, valued in excess of 13.2 billion pounds.

Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) in Land Sec. rose 0.3 percent in early deals, against a 0.8 percent fall in the broader FTSE 100.

The acquisition was made available to HSBC clients under its 'Club Deal Programme', where private clients are able to band together and access prime real estate in a manner typically the preserve of institutional investors.

The deal is the third to carried out under the programme in conjunction with asset manager Hines, after previous deals for Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) 's Liffey Valley Shopping Centre in February, and the 2012 purchase of London's Broadgate Quarter.

"Retail is becoming an increasingly important asset class for us in the UK and we anticipate growing our exposure to shopping centres next year," said Ross Blair, Senior Managing Director, Hines UK. ($1 = 0.6387 British Pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Louise Heavens)