This Week's London Deal Sheet

A weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email tim.clark@bisnow.com.

Warwick Investment Group has secured £40M from Secure Trust Bank Real Estate Finance to fund the acquisition of three residential portfolios, comprising 39 properties, in Mayfair and Belgravia, London.

In the largest of the three deals, Warwick acquired a portfolio of 25 apartments across five unbroken freeholds on Ebury Street, Belgravia. Warwick has also completed the purchase of nine freehold houses at St Barnabas Mews, on St Barnabas Street, Belgravia.

Completing the trio of deals, Warwick has acquired 13/13a North Audley Street in London’s Mayfair district. Warwick is consolidating residential assets across central London under its rental brand with the aim of becoming a top 10 private landlord in the city.

SALES

British Land has sold a 75% stake in its Paddington Central assets to GIC for £694M. The developers have formed a new joint venture following the sale, with ownership split 75:25 for GIC and British Land, respectively. 

According to British Land, the sale was priced at 1% under the September 2021 book value and represents a net initial yield of 4.5%. 

Paddington Central was acquired by British Land in 2013 for £470M. At the time the site comprised three buildings, a retail and leisure cluster and two development sites. 

The joint venture will initially comprise the following assets: 2 and 4 Kingdom Street, 1 and 3 Sheldon Square (including the retail and leisure element), the gateway development site and surrounding moorings.

***

LondonMetric has shelled out £27M to purchase six urban logistics warehouses across London. 

Three properties in Colliers Wood, Stratford and Stockwell have been acquired with vacant possession and will be redeveloped or refurbished at an anticipated yield on cost of 4.5%.

The remaining properties in Hackney, Acton and Thamesmead are fully let. LondonMetric said that it expected to make an initial yield of 4.3% on the properties, with a reversionary yield of more than 4.5%. The assets are expected to generate a total rent of £1.2M a year.

***

Segro spent £195M to acquire a number of assets in inner London. The property investment and development company has bought the Grand Union Trade Park in Park Royal from abrdn for an undisclosed fee as well as two further assets in Wapping and Clapham.

The Grand Union Trade Park includes 100K SF across 4 acres and lies adjacent to the Tudor Industrial Estate and Premier Park, also owned by Segro.

Segro plans to redevelop both Wapping and Clapham sites into best-in-class industrial estates holding 150K SF of net-zero warehouse space.

LEASES

TDR Capital has signed up for an additional 12K SF close to its offices on Bentinck Street. The firm has leased space from the Howard de Walden Estate at the recently refurbished 4 Bentinck Street. Spread across six floors, the building benefits from open-plan space and features two terraces and an outdoor breakout space. Bluebook London acted on behalf of the Howard de Walden Estate.

***

Savills has snapped up some overflow space as the property agent prepares to refurbish its London HQ. Its flexible office specialist Workthere, has agreed a two-year licence to take a floor of 20 Rathbone Place. The Savills HQ refurb is to be undertaken on a floor-by-floor basis and carried out by the agent’s in-house team KKS Savills as well as its building and project consultancy team.

FINANCE

Student accommodation provider Urbanest has secured a £148M green loan from LaSalle to deliver an 852-bed scheme on Battersea Park Road. Located on the boundary of the Battersea Design and Technology Quarter and adjacent to Battersea Power Station’s new Northern Line stop, the scheme will also include 65K SF of office space, a business incubator, a café, a pub and community spaces, together with landscaped public realm in an-AHMM designed scheme.

***

Legal & General Investment Management has secured £270M of green development financing from a consortium of banks including HSBC, Natwest and Standard Chartered.

The green debt facility will be used to fund the development of a £500M Wandsworth build-to-rent scheme that will replace a former B&Q and Homebase site. The scheme will deliver more than 1,000 homes, 35% of which will be affordable, and over 60K SF of commercial space. Construction work is already underway with the first homes ready for occupation in 2023.

***

TPG Real Estate Partners and Gatehouse Bank have launched Start Living, a new BTR brand and platform focused on the single-family sector. The new brand launches with a target to acquire 2,500 homes with a gross development value of £500M. 

The new venture is the third and most ambitious single-family BTR platform undertaken by Gatehouse Bank. The Thistle Fund was built from 2014 and was the first single-family PRS deal of scale to transact in the UK when the 900-unit portfolio was sold in 2021. A second PRS platform was established in 2015, with the Kuwait Investment Authority as cornerstone investor.

***

The venture capital arm of JLL is working with Re-Leased to raise $15M of funding to drive growth in the cloud-based software firm’s key markets. The funding will also be used to invest in its core software platform and launch a series of new products and partnerships.

The platform states that it has transformed a traditionally slow-moving industry with a modern, cloud-based product, which is used to manage over 50,000 properties and 100,000 leases worldwide. 

PERSONNEL

JLL has appointed John Woodger as its new director of capital markets. Working primarily in the City of London, Woodger has experience negotiating some of the capital's most high-profile investment and funding transactions including 1&2 New Ludgate for Sun Venture, and the sale of 20 Churchill Place on behalf of M&G. He joins Richard Bullock and Hugh Faith, who joined JLL's central London team earlier this year.

***

Gerald Eve has bolstered its London building consultancy team by hiring Matt Neave from JLL. Joining as a partner at the firm, Neave has 19 years of experience in the property sector advising on refurbishments and office relocations. He spent six years at JLL from 2016 and also over 12 years working at Deloitte between September 2000 and 2013 on its building consultancy team.

***

Canadian investor Cadillac Fairview has appointed a new managing director for Europe. Based in London, Jenny Hammarlund will report to Executive Vice President Duncan Osborne and will oversee UK and European portfolios including the 930K SF White City Place office scheme in west London and the joint venture with Stanhope and Oxford University’s St John’s College on a major new life sciences scheme in the city.