This Week's Europe Deal Sheet
UK
WELPUT signed a new lease with the fund’s largest tenant, U.S.-based Warner Bros Entertainment. Warner Bros is the sole occupant of 135k SF at 98 Theobalds Road, WC1, and has extended its occupation from 2019 to 2034. WELPUT will jointly invest with the tenant in a refurbishment of the nine-storey property. WELPUT was advised by Strutt & Parker, and CBRE acted for Warner.
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Picton secured its first new occupier at 50 Farringdon Road in Clerkenwell, EC1. Engineering contractor Volker Wessels signed a 10-year lease for 7,800 SF on the first floor. The second floor and one small suite on the first floor remain available to let. The property is a short walk from Farringdon station and with Crossrail due to open in 2019, the connectivity of this location will improve.
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Shaftesbury exchanged an agreement to surrender the Cha Cha Moon lease on Ganton Street, Carnaby. Shaftesbury will redevelop the site in late January to create two new opportunities to satisfy demand from restaurant operators. The new offerings will be a 1,640 SF unit with a Ganton Street frontage and a 2,500 SF unit on the ground floor of Kingly Court. Both units will have provision for dedicated al fresco dining, with the Kingly Court unit additionally benefitting from a roof-level cover across the whole courtyard throughout the winter months. Davis Coffer Lyons have been appointed to market the new units.
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Redefine International let 11k SF at City Point, Leeds, to Blacks Solicitors, bringing the office asset, which was acquired as part of the AUK portfolio in March 2016, to full occupancy. Blacks is taking the entire second floor on a 10-year lease and will join tenants Ashcourt Rowan plc, GVA, Savills, JLL, Starbucks and HSBC.
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JD Sports will upsize into a new regional flagship of almost 40k SF, twice its existing store, at Liverpool ONE. To accommodate JD Sports’ increase, Superdry is relocating to Liverpool ONE’s South John Street, where the fashion brand will open a 10k SF store. Cushman & Wakefield and Metis Real Estate Advisors acted for Liverpool ONE. JD Sports and Superdry dealt direct.
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DTZ Investors completed an off-market acquisition of Units 7-10 Brooklands Close in Sunbury for £3.6M. The asset comprises a terrace of four industrial units fully let to Strata Technology Ltd, U-Freight (UK) Ltd and Edmundson Electrical Ltd.
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Homeware and household goods retailer Wilko signed a 10-year lease at Cathedral Square in Worcester for a rent of £380k/year on a 20k SF unit. The landlord is Salmon Harvester Opportunity Fund. The deal is the largest letting in the City Centre in seven years and is almost the last piece in the jigsaw for SHOF’s £20M transformation of Cathedral Square, which is 90% pre-let. BNP Paribas Real Estate acted for Wilko. Hartnell Taylor Cook, Johnson Fellows and DMR represented SHOF.
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Capital & Regional signed a raft of leasing deals at The Mall Luton, led by a new commitment from anchor retailer JD Sports, which committed to a 10-year lease to occupy 9k SF in the main Waller Street Mall, expanding from 4,500 SF. Schuh and Holland & Barratt have both upsized to new units of 3,400 SF and 3,600 SF, respectively, both on new 10-year leases.
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Picton sold two small, non-core retail assets in Bath for £3.23M, reflecting an aggregate net initial yield of 4.7%. The disposals of 2 Bath St and 6 Argyle St are in line with the company’s strategy to reshape the portfolio in favour of larger assets with greater potential for capital and income growth.
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Rockspring Property Investment Managers and BlackRock UK Property Fund secured a 40k SF letting to Rank Leisure Holdings Ltd at the TOR office building in Maidenhead. Rank, which is the operator of the Grosvenor Casino and Mecca Bingo, agreed to a 10-year lease for its new UK support office. It's taking the first and second floors of the scheme at a rent of £33/SF.
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Ashby Capital’s 200 Aldersgate achieved a Wired Certified Platinum rating, ranking its technology infrastructure as amongst the best in the UK. The achievement comes after The Colmore Building, AshbyCapital’s newly enhanced office building, became the first in Birmingham to be Wired Certified and also achieved a Platinum ranking.
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UBS Asset Management's Real Estate & Private Markets business signed four new tenants totalling almost 20k SF at the Springfields Outlet Centre in Spalding, which is owned by UBS Triton Property Fund. Following the arrival of British multinational retailer Next in early 2016, the outlet centre has continued to attract a high-quality tenant mix, including Ernest Jones, Fat Face and Starbucks. The 170k SF centre is now fully occupied by 55 retailers.
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JLL appointed James Gregory to the role of JLL UK CFO following the promotion of Richard Howling to UK COO. He joins the firm from Xchanging plc, which was recently acquired by Computer Sciences Corp.
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AshbyCapital and Exemplar pre-let the top three floors of The Avenue, their office and retail development on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Tottenham Court Road in London’s West End, to Skyscanner. The global travel technology company leased 24k SF. The Avenue, which provides 71k SF of office space and 14k SF of retail space, will complete in March 2017. 47k SF remains available, set over four contiguous floors, which is being marketed by joint agents CBRE and Savills.
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Legal and General sold Elmbrook House, Sunbury on Thames, on behalf of a client to Spelthorne Borough Council for £7.16M, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.25%. Elmbrook House is adjacent to Sunbury train station. Knight Frank’s capital markets team acted on behalf of LGIM Real Assets, while Cushman & Wakefield represented Spelthorne Borough Council. This is the second disposal Knight Frank has completed for the fund, having also recently sold Sandgate House, a prime long-let office in Newcastle.
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LSQ London at 30 Panton St, SW1, will be the new home to the NFL UK. The organization leased the top floor, which totals 9,694 SF and has fantastic views across central London. The seven-storey, 95k SF building, which overlooks Leicester Square, completed in October 2016. It is a brand-new building behind a retained façade, designed by Make Architects. In addition to the office space, Lego recently opened its flagship store in the ground and first floors, creating a high-profile destination in central London. JLL advised the landlord.
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Hermes Investment Management and AustralianSuper will invest £60 million in centre: mk. The Grade II listed building will undergo a series of enhancements that will include a new customer service lounge, family facilities, and a new 1,400-space car park adjoining John Lewis. Other initiatives will embrace the latest digital technology with a new centre:mk app, website, social media platform, signage and wayfinding.
IRELAND
Hammerson and Irish Life, joint owners of the Ilac Centre, started the redevelopment of the Centre’s Moore Mall South. Agreements have been exchanged for four of the five newly created units. The redevelopment, which involves an investment of €1.5M, will be completed by summer 2017 and forms part of the owners’ wider plans to improve the tenant mix at the Ilac Centre. The property comprises 292k SF of retail accommodation and in 2016 had footfall of 17.8 million people.
FINLAND
Valad Europe and Goldman Sachs acquired the Omega portfolio comprising 22 properties in Finland. Valad will assume responsibility for the ongoing asset management of the portfolio. The Omega portfolio comprises 1.2M SF across 13 office buildings, five industrial buildings and four buildings with primarily retail premises. More than 80% of the value of the portfolio is in the HMA region, which includes Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. JLL represented the seller.
ITALY
Barings Real Estate Advisers secured a 248k SF office building in Milan at Via Pola 9/11, within the business district of Porta Nuova, for €44.35M. Constructed in 1970, it has nine floors above ground with offices and retail as well as two underground floors.
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AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets completed the acquisition of U7, a recent office building in Milanofiori, Italy, from Polis SGR for €45M. The acquisition was made on behalf of the Columbus Real Estate Euro Fund. Built in 2007, U7 comprises 161k SF of Grade A office space spread across eight above-ground floors, plus 110 underground carpark spaces. The asset is let to seven tenants.
SWEDEN
M&G Real Estate acquired the leasehold of Blekholmen 1, an office scheme in central Stockholm, for €230M from NIAM. Located next to Stockholm’s Central Station, the 366k SF building is let to 30 tenants and has recently undergone significant refurbishment.
GERMANY
INTERNOS Global Investors sold an office building at Darmstädter Landstrasse 116, Frankfurt am Main, on behalf of one of the funds its manages. The purchaser is a private investor represented by the CELLS Group and was advised by Savills. The purchase price is confidential. The building, constructed in 2003, has a total lettable area of 5,816 sq m. It is fully let with major tenants including Amadeus Fire and Svenska Handelsbanken. GSK Stockmann + Kollegen provided legal advice to the vendor.
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Unitymedia NRW GmbH leased 209k SF, including 171k SF of office space and 38k SF of warehouse space, at Hubertushof, Aachener Strasse 746-750, in Müngersdorf, Cologne. Unitymedia has signed a new long-term lease for its German headquarters with Deka Immobilien, which will come into effect at the end of 2018. BNP Paribas Real Estate advised the tenant under an exclusive search mandate.
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AEW acquired a 115k SF office asset in Wiesbaden, Germany. The asset was purchased from IFM Immobilien AG on behalf of a French institutional investor. The building forms part of the Kureck development in Wiesbaden’s Central Business District and comprises seven floors of newly built office space as well as 200 parking spaces. The property is fully let to the federal state of Hessia’s Ministry for Social Affairs and Integration on a fixed 20-year lease.
FRANCE
Catalyst Capital purchased the Domus shopping centre at Rosny-sous-Bois on the eastern outskirts of Paris at a price above €100M. The 674k SF centre comprises 70 shops and four anchor stores — Alinea, Truffaut, Boulanger and Zodio. It has an occupancy rate of 94%, following the latest arrivals of Maisons du Monde and Ligne Roset. BNP Paribas Real Estate acted for the vendor; Catalyst was advised by JLL, Freshfields, Lasaygues, BDGS and Eight Advisory. Accessite will continue to operate as the property and leasing manager on behalf of CEPF II.
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Société Foncière Lyonnaise spent €165M to acquire the historical headquarters building of the SMA group. The building occupies a prime site at 112-122 Avenue Emile Zola, in the heart of Paris's 15th arrondissement. It is surrounded by a mix of residential and commercial real estate and is well-served by public transport. Contracts will be exchanged when SMA moves to its new headquarters in Q4 2017. The approximately 226k SF building features a tree-filled garden. SFL intends to restructure the property as a new major business centre in the west of the capital.
SPAIN
Leche Pascual Group let 121k SF at Rockspring’s recently developed Grade A logistics park in Madrid. The letting includes 7,200 SF of new offices at mezzanine level, which have been developed for Leche Pascual on a bespoke basis, as well as 149 car parking spaces. Torrejón comprises a total site area of 915k SF and provides 511k SF of lettable space across two independent, adjacent warehouses.
