US private equity powerhouse Blackstone has decided the time is right to divest one of Sydney’s best-known malls, Top Ryde City in the city’s north-west, the first retail property it acquired in the Australian market.

With a value estimated around the $600 million mark, the mall at Ryde was once a key component in a $3 billion portfolio of 10 shopping centres that Blackstone had once hoped to sell off through either a float or a mega trade sale, nine years ago.