Industrial portfolio acquired in £116m deal

Peartree Lane Industrial Estate, Dudley

Property investor Hansteen has sold a portfolio of industrial sites – including several in the Midlands – in a deal worth £116m.

Hansteen only acquired the Industrial Multi Property Trust portfolio last year but it has now sold the estates on to an entity owned by Warehouse REIT, which in turn, is acquiring the IMPT portfolio through the sale and purchase of certain subsidiaries of Industrial Multi Property Trust Ltd.

The portfolio consists of 51 UK multi-let properties offering circa 500 leasable units with a total floor area of approximately 1.65 million sq ft and a passing rent roll of £8m per annum at June 30, 2017. The contracted rent roll is currently circa £8.5m per annum. Approximately 93% by floor area is invested in light industrial property and 7% in workspace and offices.

In the Midlands, its sites include Peartree Lane Industrial Estate in Dudley, St James Mill Business Park in Northampton, Webb Ellis Industrial Park, Rugby and Falcon Business Park in Burton-upon-Trent.

Hansteen said the portfolio was being sold on a debt free basis for cash, and the transaction is expected to occur at the end of March 2018. There are no conditions to completion.

Commenting Ian Watson and Morgan Jones, Joint Chief Executives of Hansteen, said: “In line with our intentions set out in the original IMPT offer document dated February 22, 2017, we absorbed the portfolio into our UK property asset management platform and were in the process of successfully increasing the occupancy and income across the portfolio.

“However, during the successful implementation of this strategy, we received an unsolicited approach from Warehouse REIT to acquire the portfolio at a level which provides a return in excess of our initial expectations and which we were willing to accept.

“In the short term we plan to use part of the proceeds to reduce the balance on our revolving debt facility. Going forward the board will consider new acquisition opportunities or distributions to shareholders.”

Warehouse REIT, which is a specialist warehouse investor listed on AIM, said the acquisition was in line with the company’s strategy and concluded a successful fundraising raised by the company’s IPO in September.

The deal brings its total property acquisitions to date to £279m, while it overall portfolio is now spread more evenly spread across the UK with 29% in the Midlands, 29% in the South East, 27% in the North of England, 13% in Scotland and 2% in Wales.

Commenting on the transaction, Neil Kirton, Non-Executive Chairman of Warehouse REIT, said: “This acquisition provides us with a meaningful portfolio of good-quality and well-located assets that are perfectly aligned with Warehouse REIT’s investment strategy.

“The portfolio is well known to management who have tracked it for some time and we are pleased to now be in a position to take ownership of it.” w

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close