Midlands Shed Developer Surges As South Africans Invest
South African investors have sold a West Midlands Amazon warehouse, releasing capital to build a £1B UK logistics portfolio with former directors of Midlands shed giant Roxhill.
Cape Town-based logistics investor Equites has sold two warehouses to Blackstone for £43.4M, a net exit yield of 4.79% and a sale price at a premium of 6% to Equites’ book value.
The £23.7M net proceeds of the sale will be reinvested in its partnership with Newlands, the Rugby-based development vehicle founded by three former Roxhill executives, following Roxhill’s merger with Segro.
The Equites/Newlands joint venture, agreed in 2019, has already signed pre-lets with Hermes and Amazon.
“The partnership has recently concluded two development agreements with Amazon and Hermes, with total development costs of £41M and £72M, respectively. The two facilities that Equites will ultimately hold will be brand-new premium logistics facilities, built to institutional standards and let to high-quality tenants on long-term leases,” a statement from Equites said.
Newlands was founded by former Roxhill executives Graham Pardoe, Ashley Hollinshead and Simon Williams.
This new vehicle is intended to drive the UK portfolio of Equites Property Fund to in excess of £1B, providing Newlands with the capital base to secure new opportunities and grow significantly over the years ahead.
The joint venture plan developments close to junction 16 of the M1 motorway at Rugby and at Peterborough West.
Newlands Developments was founded by three shareholder directors in November 2018 having previously been senior members of the management team at Roxhill Developments.
The team is based in Rugby at the heart of the logistics network and has worked together for many years through various companies.
Newlands is the appointed development manager on all Roxhill Developments Group assets and is currently on-site developing 1M SF for Howdens plc at Warth Park, Raunds and more than 1M SF of commercial units at Peterborough Gateway for DSV, Coloplast, eLeather and Munoz Group. It is also appointed as development manager on behalf of Segro on land at Newport Pagnell, Milton Keynes.
