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.
Listed investor Shaftesbury has snapped up the leasehold on a 20K SF property in Berwick Street in Soho.
Shaftesbury has paid £27.5M to acquire a 200-year leasehold interest in the ground floors of 92-104 Berwick Street.
The leasehold was sold by Berwick Street Securities and consists of approximately 15.6K SF of retail and 3,600 SF of leisure and restaurant space.
Shaftesbury plans to create 11 new units for retailers and food businesses at the site.
DEALS
Citi Private Bank has completed the £100M purchase of One Forbury Place in Reading. The 185K SF building has been fully leased to energy firm SSE since 2015, with the lease expiring in March 2031. Acquired from M&G, the deal represents a net initial yield of 5.64%. Allsop acted on behalf of Citi in the purchase.
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Great Portland Estates has acquired the long leasehold on 6/10 St Andrew Street in Farringdon for £30M. The 46.2K SF building is vacant and benefits from planning permission for a two-storey extension. GPE said it intended to refurbish the property to bring it into line with its net-zero carbon commitments, and when complete it will offer 48K SF over nine floors with two private terraces.
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LondonMetric has sold a distribution warehouse in Reading to EQT Exeter for £60.6M. The 229K SF warehouse is let to DHL. LondonMetric acquired the property in 2015 with 10 years on the lease for £29.1M, reflecting a yield of 5.7%. Since acquisition, LondonMetric settled the 2020 open market rent review at 28% above previous passing.
The sale is 20% above the 30 September 2021 book value and will crystallise an ungeared internal rate of return of 15%.
LEASES
Landsec has pre-let 40K SF at its Victoria development to international investment firm Qube Research & Technologies. The development at n2 is the last piece of the Nova masterplan at Victoria and when complete will provide 161K SF across 17 floors.
The new lease will see QRT triple the floorspace it currently has at the 12K SF Nova South scheme nearby.
FINANCE
Cheyne Capital has provided a £187M loan to LaSalle Investment Management to finance the acquisition and construction of a mixed-use scheme in Wembley, London.
The scheme has been acquired through a structured transaction by LaSalle’s value-add investments business line, with Regal London retained as development manager.
The site, which was the old Euro Car Parts headquarters, will be transformed into 759 new homes, 35% of which will be affordable. The development will also include nearly 40K SF of flexible urban logistics and commercial space and a new publicly accessible green space.
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Developer Greystar has secured a £170M loan from Investec for its joint venture build-to-rent Sailmakers scheme in Canary Wharf. Investec said that it had provided £85M of the total £170M package, with the other half of the funding provided by an unnamed global institutional investor.
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Infinium Logistics has launched a £500M European sustainable FleetHub property fund. The newly created fund platform, GreenPoint Infinium Holdings, will be financed with about £200M in initial equity commitments, providing a total investment capacity of around £500M with gearing. It expects to deploy this capital into the market over the next two years, with a 10-year fund life.
Having already secured its first major investment in Swindon and with a further six sites under offer, it is seeking to acquire and develop a portfolio of electrified FleetHubs in key industrial locations across Europe.
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Home REIT has announced plans to raise £150M of equity at a price of 115p per share. The proceeds of the equity raise will be used to acquire new homes. The REIT’s portfolio is valued at £713.4M, and it provides 8,556 beds to homeless people across the UK.
PEOPLE MOVES
Greystar has appointed Alberto Donoso to its European leadership team to oversee development. Donoso joined Greystar in 2015 and is based in Charleston, South Carolina, where he leads the international development operations function, which supports Greystar’s continued expansion in international markets.
He will relocate to Madrid to take up his new European role where he will partner with Greystar’s country leaders to develop multifamily, student and young professional housing assets across key European markets.
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Vivienne King has been appointed head of social impact at The Good Economy. The former head of Revo and current chair of the Shopkeepers’ Campaign will lead the firm’s commercial real estate growth strategy, building on its track record providing ESG and impact measurement and management services for its existing clients, including CBRE Global Investors, Legal & General and M&G.
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Greystar’s former urban living head has joined investment manager MGT. Adina David will be responsible for leading MGT’s rental living strategy and growing the firm’s existing £1.4B residential portfolio.
