The Percy Street property is anchored by Coles supermarket and an ATM.

Vendor Sentinel Property Group announced the sale on Wednesday and reported the new owner was a private company from rural NSW.

Sentinel had bought the shopping centre in May 2015 as part of three regional NSW shopping centres in Bathurst, Narromine and Wellington purchased in one line from Charter Hall Retail REIT.

The sale of the Wellington centre comes after Sentinel’s sale of the Narromine centre in July for $4.18 million.

Sentinel managing director Warren Ebert said the company had been capitalising on the rising market demand for neighbourhood-style shopping centres in key regional locations.

He said Sentinel had bought well in this sector, when it was unloved by others, and was well-placed to maximise returns for its investors on divestment.

“Well-located shopping centres in strategic regional hubs and anchored by major supermarket chains are emerging as one of the most highly sought-after of all retail asset classes,” Mr Ebert said.

“There is currently limited availability of this style of property, which is intensifying demand from a wide range of buyers.

“Fortunately, we have plenty of stock as we were buying when others were not and this presents the opportunity to deliver strong capital growth returns to our investors.”

The Wellington shopping centre was an asset of the open-ended pooled Sentinel Countrywide Retail Trust, which also owns shopping centres in Dubbo, Bathust and Broken Hill in NSW and Atherton, Townsville and Emerald  in QLD.

Investors in the Sentinel Countrywide Retail Trust receive net returns of 9.5 per cent per annum, paid monthly purely from rental income, as well as capital growth returns on divestment.

The sale of the Coles Wellington shopping centre was negotiated by Darren Beehag of Burgess Rawson.