* 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 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Land Securities Group has sold Scottish real estate worth 224.1 millionpounds ($350.87 million) to HSBC as it focuses onlarger 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 Livingstonon behalf of some of its private banking clients.
Investors are increasingly turning to real estate andinfrastructure investments as they face limited returns from stocks and bonds.
Land Sec. said the Centre was Scotland's second-largestcovered shopping centre, with more than 1 million square feet,and was home to around 160 retailers, including Primark,Debenhams and BHS.
"The sale ... follows a number of recent transactionsdemonstrating our clear commitment to reshaping our shoppingcentre portfolio to focus on dominant regional and GreaterLondon assets," Scott Parsons, Managing Director of Retail atLand Securities said in a statement.
Land Securities is the UK's largest listed commercialproperty company, owning and managing more than 25 millionsquare feet of property, from shopping centres to offices,valued in excess of 13.2 billion pounds.
Shares in Land Sec. rose 0.3 percent in early deals, againsta 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 bandtogether and access prime real estate in a manner typically thepreserve of institutional investors.
The deal is the third to carried out under the programme inconjunction with asset manager Hines, after previous deals forIreland's Liffey Valley Shopping Centre in February, and the2012 purchase of London's Broadgate Quarter.
"Retail is becoming an increasingly important asset classfor us in the UK and we anticipate growing our exposure toshopping centres next year," said Ross Blair, Senior ManagingDirector, Hines UK.($1 = 0.6387 British Pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Louise Heavens)