Lend Lease, as manager of the fund, started a sale process in July to gauge market interest in the assets, when the fund was nearing the completion of set life.

Managing director of Lend Lease's Australian investment management business Kylie Rampa said the institutional investors made the decision that they wanted to retain their holdings. Some have sold to new investors in the fund, which will be managed by Lend Lease.

The decision reflected investors' desire to keep exposure to these regional shopping centres, with some pushing to keep the fund alive as the owner.

Ms Rampa said JLL and Macquarie Group were appointed to work on a range of options that were considered by investors, including a direct asset sale, a sale of the existing fund structure, or a restructuring of the fund.

The highly sought after portfolio received seven competitive bids from mostly domestic institutions. One of the bids was from Lend Lease's investment management section on behalf of a consortium of investors, which included some existing fund investors.

"Following the campaign managed by Macquarie Group and JLL to sell the portfolio or the fund, the investors chose to proceed with the option to partially recapitalise," Ms Rampa said.

"This option provided the opportunity for some existing investors to exit, selling their securities in the fund. The recapitalisation option to sell the securities provided a stronger equity return to the exiting investors."

The retail fund was launched in 2010, as a closed-end offering. It comprises shopping centres in NSW and three in Western Australia, and was offered with management contracts.

Mr Rampa said they had received seven serious bids, but declined to comment on the potential purchasers.

Analysts said the properties would have appealed to trusts, such as CFS Retail Property Trust Group, which has a wholesale fund specialising in the area, Charter Hall Group and financial services group Challenger.

All property companies are now looking to build their funds under management, with GPT Group last week raising $255 million to seed a new metro office fund.

Lend Lease has about $10.6 billion, which has averaged a return of 16 per cent annual growth over the past five years.

There is close to 90 institutional investors in its Australian platform, weighted to Australian investors, with the retail business managing about $6 billion.

Institutional investors, super funds and overseas buyers are also awaiting any sales by Scentre of interests in its Australian and New Zealand shopping centres, which the management has said is an option to help fund its development platform.