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.
Debt funds managed by Ares have led a £755M preferred equity investment into Quintain’s Wembley Park BTR development.
Quintain said in a statement that the new preferred equity would allow it to carry out the final stages of development at Wembley Park, which will total 8,400 homes when completed.
Ares Alternative Credit is providing £418M to the preferred equity investment and Lone Star, which owns Quintain, is providing a further £337M. Lone Star has invested £2.8B so far into the development of Wembley Park. That investment has seen about 5,000 homes built.
Lone Star had started to break up Wembley Park by selling individual blocks before this deal, but those transactions are now likely to stop.
Following the transaction, Stefano Questa, partner and European co-head of Ares Alternative Credit, will be joining the Quintain board of directors.
DEALS
A fund backed by Lloyds Banking Group and Homes England has forward purchased a £300M student accommodation scheme in Stratford, East London.
The Housing Growth Partnership has bought the 397-room scheme from Watkins Jones.
The transaction was structured as a joint venture between HGP and Watkins Jones, with 75% owned by the former and 25% by the latter. The payments will be spread over the three-year development programme of the scheme.
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Euro Real Estate has bought 24 Savile Row in Mayfair for £90M.
The multi-let, part freehold, part virtual freehold property comprises 30K SF of office and gallery space. The building is let at an average rent of £126 per SF overall, inclusive of rent-free top-ups, which Euro Real Estate said is highly reversionary. It is rated EPC “A” and BREEAM “Excellent.”
The building was bought from a joint venture between Aerium and Urban&Civic. Euro Real Estate is part of Von Finck Group, the family office of the German banking and insurance Von Finck dynasty
FINANCE
Related Argent has secured an £85M investment loan from NatWest to refinance its Author King’s Cross BTR development.
It is the first investment loan for Related Argent's rental portfolio and is part of the stabilisation of the Author King’s Cross development. The loan has a three-year term.
Author King’s Cross opened in October and is Related Argent’s first BTR development, located within the King’s Cross estate. It has an occupancy rate of 97%.
DEVELOPMENT
Westfield has received planning consent for a 520-room student accommodation development, which will be built on the roof of the car park at the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre in east London.
In addition to housing, the scheme will provide 30K SF of publicly accessible rooftop park space, and students will be able to use 16K SF of amenity space throughout the building.
Westfield said key design elements include utilising the existing structure and foundations, whilst the accommodation will be serviced by existing utilities to ensure the building is energy-efficient.
