Property disposals unlock £85m for LondonMetric as it shuffles its holdings
Property group LondonMetric has offloaded seven assets for £85m, including investments in the South West, North West and Yorkshire, as it continues to reshape its portfolio.
The properties sold include Ramsay Health Care hospitals in Truro and Salford, let for a further 11 years and sold in a single transaction for £59.1m.
The group said completion of the sale was expected shortly and would reduce its ownership of Ramsay hospitals to nine, with its rental exposure falling to 8.4% of total rent against 9.1% at the end of March.
Other disposals announced today include two logistics warehouses in Ripon and Normanton, let for a further six years – three years to first break – sold for £13.0m, and two Travelodge hotels in Chippenham, sold for £4.1m
LondonMetric has now sold 17 Travelodges during this financial year, reducing its rental exposure to the hotel brand to 4.1% of total rent from 4.9% on 31 March.
A Lidl store in Basildon, let for a further 17 years, was also sold for £8.8m.
Including these disposals, LondonMetric has sold 32 assets for £175m in the current financial year.
Acquisitions in the year total £62m and include a recently signed £20m forward funding of a 50,000 sq ft foodstore in Nuneaton, pre-let to Tesco on a 20-year lease.
LondonMetric is under offer on £140m of additional acquisitions, mainly long-let assets with occupiers including Lidl, M&S, Tesco and Waitrose.
Andrew Jones, chief executive of LondonMetric, said: “Despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we have made excellent progress in selling further non-core assets over the past two months.
“Our activity has helped reduce our Ramsay exposure and further improve our NNN [triple net lease] income quality, longevity and granularity.
“Whilst the investment market is generally quieter over the summer, we have been heavily engaged on reinvestment opportunities that have higher growth prospects, particularly those emanating from pension funds. We expect to transact on a number of these shortly.”
LondonMetric is the UK’s leading triple net lease REIT with an £8bn portfolio aligned to structurally supported sectors of logistics, convenience, healthcare, entertainment and leisure.
