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.
Invesco Real Estate and development manager YardNinehave agreed a new 15-year lease for just under 10K SF of grade-A office space with St. James's Place Wealth Management Group, the FTSE 100 wealth management business.
Taking the entirety of the fifth floor of Fifty Paddington, which includes 2.5K SF of roof terrace space and 9.9K SF of office accommodation, St. James’s Place is close to Paddington Station.
Fifty Paddington, the new 75K SF office and retail development at 50 Eastbourne Terrace, is now 40% let. YardNine and Invesco Real Estate previously agreed a lease with Cerner (now owned by Oracle), the U.S. supplier of health information technology services, devices and hardware, for the 14K SF first floor of the building.
The ground and lower ground retail units have been let to restaurant Vapiano and gym operator Ultimate Performance.
FINANCE
Grosvenor Property UK has agreed terms to raise £150M in a private placement. Finalised in May 2022 and drawn down in October 2022, the new 10-year, 3.23% senior notes were placed with two U.S. institutions. The investors, both existing partners to the business, have increased their holdings from a maturing £60M private placement.
Proceeds from the placement will be used for general corporate purposes, including London’s West End via investment and development activity; continued diversification via the part ownership and management of Liverpool One; and increasing allocation of capital to residential and office opportunities across England.
Grosvenor Property UK has also committed to reduce emissions across all scopes by at least 52% by 2030 and 90% by 2040. The business has already reported a 24% reduction in emissions since 2019, ahead of its net-zero carbon pathway.
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Life Science REIT is to apply for a premium listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. In a statement Thursday morning, the REIT, which more than doubled its value to £413M in its first six months since its AIM IPO, said its migration was already "well progressed".
Life Science REIT is focused solely on the UK's life sciences sector, specifically targeting opportunities in the Golden Triangle research and development hubs of Oxford, Cambridge and London St Pancras.
The objective of the company's investment policy is focused on capital growth, while also providing a growing level of income, by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of properties that are leased, or intended to be leased, to occupiers operating in the life sciences sector in the UK.
Life Science REIT joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 19 November 2021, having raised £350M in its IPO.
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Silbury Finance, the Oaktree Capital Management-backed development lender, has provided a £22M senior debt facility to Stonegate Homes, the residential developer focused on brownfield site regeneration in the Homes Counties, for the development of a 100-apartment scheme in Hove, East Sussex.
The 17-month facility, funded at 70% loan to gross development value, will support Stonegate’s transformation of a vacant office block into 100 flats for sale, arranged over seven floors. The development is located on the outskirts of Hove.
The company has delivered more than 500 homes across Greater London and south east England since 2010, and has more than 1,300 units currently in planning.
LEASING
CBRE Investment Management has agreed two leasing deals at 5 Howick Place in excess of 40K SF, leaving just one floor available in the recently refurbished office scheme in London’s Victoria.
Alternative credit specialist Pemberton Asset Management has signed to take 20K SF on the third floor of the building, while events and publishing business Informa has renewed its lease for 20K SF on the second floor. Other occupiers in the 170K SF building include Orsted, Giorgio Armani and Native.
Pemberton Asset Management was advised by Crossland Otter Hunt. Informa was advised by JLL. CBRE Investment Management was advised by Cushman & Wakefield and CBRE.
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Spacemade has partnered with Howard de Walden to open its first flexible workspace in Marylebone, London.
Howard de Walden covers more than 800 buildings across 92 acres of Marylebone in central London. Together, they will deliver a 10K SF new flexible workspace, housed in two existing buildings at 34 and 36 Queen Anne Street, one of which is Grade II listed.
The deal marks Spacemade’s 11th location in the UK and bolsters its growing central London portfolio. Spacemade recently announced three other management agreements to open new flexible workspaces in Hackney Wick, Archway and Putney. In September the group completed a £2M fundraise, which it will use to progress its aim of reaching 50 spaces in the UK in the next three years.
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The BBC is to leave some of its buildings as the corporation continues to cut costs. It will exit Wogan House, near its Broadcasting House in London, and Bridge House in MediaCity, Salford.
Wogan House was known as Western House prior to 2016, when it was renamed after the famous Irish broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan. It is currently home to Radio 2 and 6 Music programme teams along with staff from other BBC departments.
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Grosvenor is set to secure a pre-let of the majority of its 67.5K SF 65 Davies Street office development to two private equity firms.
TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm, is in talks to pre-let the top three floors of the six-storey development, comprising around 31K SF with a terrace on the fifth and sixth floor. TA is presently based on the third floor of Devonshire House, 1 Mayfair Place.
Separately, Hayfin Capital Management is in discussions to pre-let the two floors immediately beneath. The two floors comprise around 24K SF.
Grosvenor is developing 65 Davies Street for completion in September 2023.
INVESTMENT
Investor and asset manager M7 Real Estate has acquired 15 industrial, retail warehouse and office assets in the UK, via 11 separate transactions, on behalf of a joint venture targeting value-add UK real estate with a fund managed by global investment and technology development firm the D.E. Shaw group.
The acquisitions, which have been supported by senior debt financing from Barclays, comprise nine single and multi-let industrial assets across the UK, including Coventry, Oldbury and Glasgow; four retail warehousing schemes in Solihull, Leicester, South Shields and Lowestoft; and two BREEAM Excellent multi-let office properties in Glasgow.
The JV’s portfolio, which is 98% occupied, comprises a total of 61K SF with a weighted average lease term of five years. M7 will act as asset manager for the JV’s portfolio.
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Singaporean investor Hoi Hup Realty has completed its acquisition of Holborn Gate from Fifty Eight Capital in Midtown.
The price has not been disclosed although earlier reports suggested that Hoi Hup was set to buy the building early in October for £155M.
Holborn Gate is a 150K SF office and retail building next to Chancery Lane station, multi-let to 14 tenants. The building underwent a comprehensive refurbishment by Landsec in 2015.
Following its previous acquisition of 322 High Holborn and 44 Southampton Buildings in 2018, Hoi Hup could now unlock a substantial freehold island site of 1.1 acres.
