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.
Build-to-rent owner and operator Get Living has finalised a £150M refinancing of Portlands Place at its East Village scheme in Stratford, east London. The financing marks the company’s first funding deal with global investment manager PGIM Real Estate.
Portlands Place launched in August 2022, delivering 524 new homes and amenities including a gym and spin studio, a screening room, coworking space, dining room and roof gardens. The building was 80% occupied by the end of 2022 and is now at 97% occupancy.
In April of this year, Australian superannuation fund Aware Super entered the UK’s BTR market with the purchase of a 22% stake in Get Living. Aware Super joined Get Living’s other long-term institutional investors, APG and DOOR.
“Despite near-term volatility, our conviction in the structural dynamics of the UK rental market and Stratford remain strong, especially given the limited options for tenants seeking high quality homes with exceptional amenities both inside and outside the building,” PGIM Real Estate Portfolio Manager James Mathias said in a statement.
DEALS
Avant Homes has completed the sale of 306 new homes across eight developments to single-family housing provider Sigma Capital Group for £59.5M. The homes are set to be taken to market under Sigma’s private rental brand, Simple Life.
Four of the developments are in north east England and two in Yorkshire, with the balance in the East Midlands. Under the terms of the deal, Avant Homes will hand over completed homes to Sigma on each of the developments.
Avant Homes was advised on the sale by a team at real estate consultancy Colliers, led by head of residential capital markets Mike Gorman.
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Picture Living, a division of PfP’s Thriving Investments, has committed £20M to forward-fund two single-family housing schemes in the south of England, totalling 42 family homes for rent.
Vistry Group will deliver 14 three-bedroom homes in the London borough of Waltham Forest, the first of which will be available in mid-2024. The scheme is part of a multiphase brownfield regeneration project, which will comprise more than 570 homes on completion. To date, 315 of these homes have been delivered and are already fully occupied.
The second scheme, in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, is being developed by Durkan Homes. It will comprise 28 three- and four-bedroom homes, the first tranche of which is already available, with the remainder due to complete by mid-2024.
Picture Living has a mandate to invest in high-quality new or modern homes for rent across the UK. It has assets under management of around £350M and has amassed a portfolio in the region of 1,800 single-family homes and apartments, including more than 200 under construction.
DEVELOPMENT
Gen Two, a family-run life sciences developer and investor, has received a resolution to grant planning permission for the development of a 125K SF next-generation life sciences hub in Cambridge.
Following a unanimous consent decision by South Cambridge District Council, Gen Two is aiming to commence construction at Alchemy, a 5.2-acre former brownfield site in Fowlmere, in the first half of 2024. It has a view to delivering specialist life sciences research and development facilities in 2025.
Retaining and reusing two of the five existing two-storey structures to minimise the embodied carbon impact, Gen Two will create flexible and adaptable BREEAM Excellent laboratories and offices to support increasing demand for world-class R&D space from the Cambridge southern science cluster.
Gen Two will create eight self-contained laboratory suites, ranging in size from 10K SF to 20K SF, which can be combined to provide larger headquarter facilities.
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The Church Commissioners for England, in partnership with Legal & General and Gisborne, have submitted a planning application for a 43-hectare knowledge and innovation hub in Winchester.
Bushfield Camp was first allocated as a site for development in 2013 by Winchester City Council. Plans for the development centre on a purpose-built knowledge park at the core, attracting major organisations looking for new headquarters across life sciences, media and health sectors.
Bushfield will feature office, academic and employment floor space. In addition, amenities intended to create a vibrant community could include ancillary retail space, a sports hub, a hotel and a nursery.
