This Week's Europe Deal Sheet

UK

M&G Real Estate was granted planning consent for its £100M office redevelopment at Corunna House in central Glasgow. Two existing Corunna House buildings will be demolished and replaced with a new 12-storey block, which will be rebranded as 33 Cadogan St. The new development will deliver 275K SF of Grade A office accommodation in a key city centre location designed to BREEAM Excellent and WELL shell & core ready. Works on 33 Cadogan St. are expected to commence in Q2 2018 and the new building will include a retail unit on the ground floor, 64 vehicle car parking spaces and cycle parking for up to 320 bikes, spa quality showers and changing rooms.

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Helical sold The Morgan Quarter, in Cardiff, to LaSalle Investment Management for £55M. Helical acquired the former David Morgan Department Store and two Victorian arcades in 2005. Since then it has invested in a refurbishment programme that delivered more than 300K SF of high-quality retail and office space. An additional 56 residential apartments were built above the retail space and have since been sold. Helical was advised by JLL, the purchaser by Savills.

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Moorgarth Group let 1,700 SF to fashion retailer Damaged Society at Edinburgh’s Waverley Mall. The Scottish retailer has taken a five-year lease and is the first signing since the new owners acquired the shopping centre in April. Moorgarth is in discussions with a number of other potential retail and food and beverage occupiers.

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Italian chef Francesco Mazzei is set to open Fiume, a modern Italian restaurant, at Battersea Power Station this summer. Fiume will be in the first phase of the Battersea Power Station development, named Circus West Village, next to the River Thames and overlooking the piazza.

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Workspace Group sold Uplands Business Park in Walthamstow, E17, for £50M. The 11-acre industrial estate totals 290K SF of net lettable space and average rent of £5.70/SF. The property was sold at a premium of 75% (£21.5M) to the September 2016 valuation at a net initial yield of 3.1%.

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Coming off the heels of a U.S. expansion by way of New York City last month, Appear Here announced a $12M Series B funding round. This latest round is led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Simon Venture Group and existing investors Balderton, MMC, Meyer Bergman and Playfair Capital. Additionally, Rebecca Hunt from Octopus Ventures will be joining the board. Appear Here’s funding will be used to expand to top global retail cities, grow the executive team with key senior hires and build out the data science component of the platform. To date, Appear Here has raised $21.4M in funding.

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LondonMetric Property fully pre-let two former B&Q stores for significantly higher rent in Tonbridge and Launceston, where it had previously accepted early surrenders. At Tonbridge, the 42K SF scheme has been let to Go-Outdoors, Carpetright, Home Bargains, Jollyes and, most recently, Costa. The average rent of £21.40/SF compares to the previous passing of £14.80/SF. At Launceston, the 30K SF scheme has been let to M&S Foodhall, B&M and Costa. The average rent of  £16.80/SF compares to the previous £11/SF rate.

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British Land, joint owner of Meadowhall shopping destination in Yorkshire, signed five new lettings:

• Flannels will open a 10K SF store in May, represented by Rawstron Johnson.
• Organic natural health and beauty retailer Neal’s Yard will open a 700 SF store in the summer with a therapy room for well-being treatments. Ewan Mackay Property Consultants represented the tenant.
• Luxury Belgian chocolatier Godiva, advised by JLL, joined the lineup with a 1,700 SF experience-led concept store in August, on Meadowhall’s High Street next to North Face and Bose. The space will include a café and a boutique showcasing the brand’s chocolate artistry and products.
• Swiss watch manufacturer Tag Heuer will open a 1,820 SF store, its largest in the UK.
• Nespresso will open a permanent 1,200 SF store in Park Lane next to L’Occitane and Jigsaw. CBRE acted for the tenant.

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Moorfield purchased Cobalt 23 on the Cobalt Business Park in Newcastle in partnership with Highbridge. The 129K SF vacant office building was bought out of receivership. The building has the largest floor plates in Cobalt Business Park and could be occupied on a single-let basis or subdivided for multi-let occupancy. Cobalt Business Park is the largest business park in the UK and the premier office park in the north east. The agents for the building are BNP Paribas and Bray Fox Smith.

THE NETHERLANDS

M7 Real Estate invested €55M in 15 assets throughout the Netherlands. The acquisitions were made across five separate transactions, the largest of which was a portfolio bought for €38.3M. This comprises 52K square metres of office space across 11 assets in key locations, including Amsterdam and Hilversum, Enschede and Weesp, with a combined occupancy rate of 79.9%. Forty percent of the income is derived from government bodies, with private tenants including KPMG and ASUS. 

In addition, M7 has acquired three individual assets:

• Twenteplein 1, a multi-let office and retail building in Almelo for €8M. Savills acted for M7.
• Dalsteindreef 141, a 38K SF modern office building in Diemen for €3.75M. The asset is 91% let to four tenants. Spring RE acted for M7.
• Strijkviertel 27, Utrecht, a single-let warehouse, for €2.44M. Van de Graaff Vastgoed advised M7.
• Klompenmarkerstraat 3-5, a fully let office and warehouse property in Ridderkerk, near Rotterdam, for €2.4M.

Van Doorne, Savills and Ambiente provided legal, technical and environmental advice, respectively, to M7 on all of the acquisitions.

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Avignon Capital acquired a purpose-built property in The Hague, let to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for €38M. The property is in the International Peace and Justice District of The Hague, home to numerous UN or UN-related organisations. It comprises 180K SF of leasable floor area divided over basement, ground floor and seven upper floors, having been built-to-suit in 1998.

The building plays host to frequent visits by heads of state, and over the years has been the backdrop of several significant political summits, including the 2010 International Cyber Security Summit that was attended by 60 world leaders, and the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit. In 2017, the building is set to host several high-level meetings on Chemical Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.

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Rockspring let the 445K SF Tredium Logistics warehouse at the Trade Port North Industrial Estate in Venlo to Arvato Benelux B.V., a leading international logistics service supplier. Construction of the Grade A warehouse started in March 2016, shortly after the fund purchased the site, and was completed in November at a cost of €22M.

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Henley360 completed its sixth acquisition in mainland Europe, with the off-market purchase of a 151K SF light industrial park in Rotterdam for an undisclosed sum. Henley360 also completed the sale of two prime assets in Rotterdam to Urban Industrial. The site is within the Rotterdam Noord-West Business Park and comprises a mix of light industrial, office and storage facilities.

GERMANY

AEW acquired a portfolio of 20 high street retail assets in Germany from BMO Real Estate Partners. The assets, known collectively as the Sidewalk portfolio, are to be held by a Spezialfonds and are in large and midsize cities as well as select retail parks across Germany, particularly concentrated in the states of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg. The portfolio has a total lettable area of about 646K SF. AEW was advised by Greenberg Traurig and Duff & Phelps REAG GmbH. BMO Real Estate Partners Deutschland was advised by Jebens Mensching LLP. Ralph Hagedorn – Estate of the Art acted as broker.