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.
Jonathan Goldstein and Todd Boehly’s Cain International have agreed to a £65M revolving credit facility with Lovett Care, a fully integrated UK care home operator.
This facility, provided via Cain’s Fortwell credit strategy, will finance the development of new care homes across the UK. The programme will start with three homes in the south of England at Kings Hill in Kent, Chelmsford in Essex, and Abingdon in Oxfordshire.
Founded in 2009, Lovett Care specialises in care facilities, with a focus on residential, nursing and dementia care.
Its portfolio includes more than 600 beds. The firm is planning to expand, providing care in locations that serve the UK’s ageing population.
Cain has lent more than £650M to the care home sector throughout the UK since 2018.
DEALS
European asset management and energy transition specialist Infinium Logistics has completed the off-market acquisition of two adjoining sites in West Thurrock for about £15M.
The two adjacent sites total more than 4 acres and are located on Motherwell Way in West Thurrock, east of London, near Lakeside Shopping Centre. One site is a 3-acre open storage investment property. The other, a 1-acre property, was previously owner-occupied by a private individual.
The combined site creates a regular shape that is ideal for its development plans, which involve creating an electrified “FleetHub,” Infinium said. Infinium is now working with customers on proposals for a parking and charging facility that can accommodate between 250 and 500 vans.
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Evolve Estates has bought the 595K SF Bridges Shopping Centre in Sunderland for about £24M from AEW, which paid £152M for it in 2015.
The shopping centre has 100 units. Anchored by Primark, Next and TK Maxx, it also includes a 938-space car park.
Established in 2009, Evolve Estates is a mixed-use property investment and development firm that is part of the same family of companies as London & Cambridge Properties.
JLL acted as the agent for the vendor. Cited and Montagu Evans did the same for the purchaser.
FINANCE
Legal & General has secured £150M in new commitments for its UK affordable housing strategy following the launch of the Legal & General Affordable Housing Fund. The new capital brings total commitments for the fund to £280M.
The bulk of the new capital comes from Manchester’s local government pension scheme, GMPF, which has committed £120M. L&G has also committed internal client capital.
The fund will operate a direct leasing model for greater control to ensure high-quality customer service and to reduce counterparty risk, L&G said. It will be managed by L&G’s asset management division.
With £1B invested in affordable housing to date, LGAH was established in 2018 as L&G’s developer and operator of affordable housing. It now comprises 8,000 homes, with more than 5,500 in operation and 3,000 in development, and has further capital secured to support its growth.
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Blacklight Capital Partners has secured a £33M senior debt facility from Allied Irish Bank to refinance Limelight, a newly developed 535-bed student accommodation asset in central Liverpool.
The three-year facility replaces a development finance tranche provided by RoundShield, part of a broader debt and equity package used to partially fund construction of the asset after Blacklight acquired it as a distressed part-built site from administrators in July 2022.
Limelight is managed by Homes for Students, and the recently completed scheme features gated private gardens, a gym, a cinema, a sky lounge, a games area, laundry and communal study spaces.
Blacklight and RoundShield plan to bring forward an evolving pipeline of purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent developments across the country to add to Limelight, their first transaction as funding partners.
LEASING
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has signed seven new retailers for Croydon’s Centrale and Whitgift centres alongside 11 lease renewals from existing brands.
The new brands include beauty bar Adara Beauty; Dressmode, a women’s clothing store offering preowned items; Maflora, a local apparel and accessories shop from Flora Lyimo, owner of the Whitgift-based women’s fashion shop Mbuta Nanga; Pinball Republic, a pinball club working in partnership with the local council; Rebel Clothing, a men's and women’s brand; and homewares and apparel brand Stacks.
Several other brands have renewed leases totalling more than 200K SF at the two centres. They include Frasers Group, with department stores House of Fraser and Sports Direct.
Other renewals include photography service Art Impress; accessories brand Claire’s Accessories; charity shop Conditions, which provides low-cost studio programmes for artists; picture shop Frame Express; Italian furniture retailer House to Home; health food shop Holland & Barrett; Starbucks; and Waterstones.
