£47.5m deal seals The Hut’s Omega move

LONDONMETRIC Property has agreed a deal to forward fund The Hut’s 690,000 sq ft distribution base at Omega in Warrington.

It is committing £47.5m to the project, in the southern half of Omega at junction 8 of the M62, which will be developed by Omega Warrington Limited (OWL) in the new year.

The Hut, an online retailer, was widely expected to commit to Omega and has signed a 15-year lease at a rent of £3.77m a year, equating to £5.46/sq ft, and has an option to buy the site.

The Hut, based in Northwich, has been searching for a new logistics base for some time and shortlisted Omega and Airport City at Manchester airport earlier this year. It currently has two warehouses at Stretton near Warrington which are on short leases ahead of a planned move to a purpose-built site in 2016.

Andrew Jones, chief executive of LondonMetric, said: “This transaction is another step forward in LondonMetric’s ambition to extend its investment and development exposure into prime distribution warehousing, whilst providing further evidence that we continue to be the partner of choice for many of the UK’s leading retailers.

“Our distribution development pipeline alone now extends to circa 2.5m sq ft of which 1.7m sq ft will be delivered during the course of 2015. This is 100% pre-let and will deliver a total rent of over £9m per annum off average leases of over 20 years.”

LondonMetric was advised by Jones Lang LaSalle.

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