This Week's London Deal Sheet
The Deal Sheet is 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 mark.faithfull@bisnow.com.
Related Argent has formed a joint venture with investment manager Invesco Real Estate, acting on behalf of a U.S. separate account client, to deliver a £600M chunk of the first phase at the £8B Brent Cross Town scheme.
This will include the first major phase of homes and leisure, with 800 for-sale and build-to-rent homes, as well as retail and dining. Construction will begin this month and is set to be completed in 2025.
Located in north London, the 180-acre development includes 50 acres of parks and playing fields, 6,700 new homes and 3M SF of offices along with retail, leisure, student accommodation and schools. A new Brent Cross West station will connect the area to Central London in 12 minutes and is being funded as part of a £418M government grant funding agreement with the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities.
The overall Brent Cross Town development is being delivered in a partnership between Related Argent and Barnet Council. Related Argent has also secured a debt funding facility with NatWest.
FINANCING
Fiera Real Estate UK has launched a new debt platform that will invest in secured loans backed by pan-European real estate. The key driver behind the launch of this strategy is to broaden the product offering available to investors by providing them with the opportunity to take advantage of the growing funding gap in European real estate private credit, the company said.
The new platform has secured £250M of seed commitments and is expected to launch in Q1 2023.
Richard Howe and David Renshaw have joined from Cheyne Capital to set up and run the debt strategy, and the team will be investing across multiple asset classes, including residential, logistics, offices, leisure and hotels, and will initially be focused on the UK market.
***
OakNorth Bank has completed a £36M loan for the acquisition of seven student accommodation sites across Aberdeen and Southampton.
The loan is to Clearbell Property Partners III, a fund managed by Clearbell Capital. The capital will be used to acquire six purpose-built student accommodation properties in Aberdeen and to refinance a student village in Southampton totalling over 1,800 beds. The sites will be managed by Iceni Property Asset Management.
INVESTMENT
Canadian investor Cadillac Fairview, the real estate arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and UK developer and asset manager Stanhope have agreed a joint venture partnership to purchase a 110K SF trio of properties within Cambridge Science Park for £85M as part of a long-term commitment to the UK life sciences market.
Previously owned by L&G, the three-building campus at 194-198 Cambridge Science Park is set across 6.11 acres and is located in the Cambridge Northern Cluster. Working with the three existing tenants, Microsoft, Mundipharma (Napp Pharmaceutical) and CMR Surgical, the site also provides significant longer-term development opportunities, the company said.
***
British Land is understood to be planning to sell a portfolio of London buildings and has appointed an adviser to sell 10, 20 and 30 Brock Street, which are valued at about £590M and span a combined circa 500K SF.
British Land has not commented on the report, although the REIT has been active in selling completed and fully leased properties and reinvesting the proceeds in new developments.
British Land completed the largest of the trio of buildings at 10 Brock Street in 2013 and leased the building to tenants including Facebook, retailer Debenhams and Manchester City Football Club. Facebook has since taken over the space occupied by Debenhams and now leases most of the building.
LEASING
Great Portland Estates has confirmed that it is in active discussions with law firm Clifford Chance regarding a pre-let of its 2 Aldermanbury Square development.
One of GPE’s largest-ever office-led developments, which commenced construction in May 2022, the building is in the City of London. Demolition of the existing City Place House is underway and expected to complete by the end of October. The site will be replaced with a new 13-storey scheme of circa 321K SF.
Capital expenditure for the new development was estimated at £267M at the time of the March year-end results in May 2022. The estimated rental value was £24.1M in March 2022, representing a gross rent of approximately £75 per SF. The property was acquired in May 2010 for £93M. At prevailing market yields, this would imply a capital value in the region £480M, GPE said.
Clifford Chance is expected to pre-let the space as it moves back from Canary Wharf to the City. The legal firm currently rents around 550K SF at the 32-storey 10 Upper Bank Street office building at Canary Wharf, where it has been located since 2003.
***
Lazard has secured a new UK headquarters at 20 Manchester Square in the West End, with more than 78.5K SF of newly refurbished office space to be occupied by early 2025.
The seven-storey property is to house the company’s financial advisory and asset management businesses, and it has signed a 15-year lease for the property with Invesco, beginning mid-2024.
Lazard expects to take occupancy by early 2025, following a programme of renovations.
***
Resolution Property has signed Uber as its latest tenant in the 600K SF Moretown office hub in London. The taxi company has agreed a five-year lease for 8,500 SF on the ground floor of the 87K SF Building 2, which is one of six buildings that form the office campus.
The U.S. ride-sharing giant is relocating its Greenlight Hub to a Category A+ refurbished ground-floor unit in Building 2.
Resolution Property has been transforming the hub into a mixed-use destination campus since 2016, and current tenants include Gensler, Ipsos, Thales, Sky and Handelsbanken.
PEOPLE MOVES
Real estate investment, development and management company Fabrix has hired Nicholas Schiloff as chief investment officer to lead the firm’s investment and asset management activities.
Schiloff joins Fabrix from Blackstone, where he left as a principal after seven years with the firm. His experience included nearly £10.5B of private and public markets acquisitions in the UK and Europe across a variety of property types, including logistics, residential, offices, life sciences and film studios.
He will help oversee Fabrix’s investment and asset management activities, as well as raising and structuring equity and debt for the firm’s ongoing business initiatives.
The firm owns a real estate portfolio in London and Berlin, including projects under development, with a total gross development value of over £1B.
DEVELOPMENT
Real estate entrepreneur Laurence Kirschel's Consolidated St Giles is to sell a consented luxury hotel and theatre development in London's West End ‘theatre-land’.
Savills and Hanover Green have been mandated to advise on the sale of the freehold interest at 5-9 Great Newport Street on the western fringe of Covent Garden, near Leicester Square. No formal price has been disclosed.
The site has a planning consent for a 322-seat theatre, 66-bed luxury hotel with rooftop bar and pool, restaurant, bar and gallery space totalling 72.5K SF across four below-ground, ground and six upper floors.
Comprising three adjoined properties, the existing buildings are a mix of office, gallery, theatre and restaurants built between the 17th and 19th centuries.
Planning was implemented in 2019, with all pre-commencement conditions met, including the payment of a Section 106 agreement and community infrastructure levy.
