Investor goes Christmas shopping with £94m acquisition of business park

UK Commercial Property REIT has made a £94m swoop for Precision Park in Leamington Spa.

Precision Park includes two distribution units extending to over 380,000 sq ft, 65,442 sq ft of office accommodation and development land spanning 3.72 acres.

Both existing distribution units are currently let to two tenants; IT service management company, Iron Mountain, and The Secretary of State for the Department of Health & Social Care. The latter is situated in a unit dedicated to being one of the two UK ‘Megalabs’, aimed at increasing the UK’s daily testing capacity for Covid-19 and cementing the UK as a world leader in diagnostics. The unit itself is set to help create up to 4,000 jobs and forms a key part of the UK’s national infrastructure response to future epidemics as well as adding diagnostic capacity for other critical illnesses.

The office accommodation is also let to two technology-focused tenants, including Tata Consultancy Services and a global social networking provider, with the area set to become a more established location for prime tech products.

Kerri Hunter, interim lead manager at UKCM, said: “The property is well located and well let to very strong covenants in good quality buildings, with a life sciences/tech angle. Its purchase is an excellent fit to fund strategy as it is a multi-faceted investment, encompassing all aspects of what we’re trying to achieve – it not only offers solid income streams but also the opportunity to drive superior performance through asset management and development. The low risk nature of the existing portfolio enables us to take on more development, thereby creating more high quality assets at a significant discount to purchasing up and let stock.

“It is part of a strong pipeline of additional interesting assets UKCM is looking to invest in and builds on the company’s strong portfolio of recent acquisitions, which includes the income-accretive medium term industrial development site in West London and the forward funding of Sussex Junction.”