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.
Private equity investor Meadow Partners has partnered with the Affordable Housing & Healthcare Group and acquired six existing schemes comprising 550 apartments across the south-west of England from the senior living shared ownership housing provider.
It will seek to fund an initial pipeline of an additional 500 apartments, and the combined value of the existing assets and future pipeline is estimated at £500M.
“Meadow has long observed the UK senior living residential market and we are pleased to have identified AHH as our first investment. We believe the current and future portfolio will benefit from the demographic trends of the UK’s aging population and growing demand for specialised housing options,” Meadow founding partner J. Andrew McDaniel said in a statement.
Knight Frank advised on the deal.
ACQUISITIONS
LondonMetric Property has confirmed the off-market acquisition of six single-let urban logistics properties for £78M from an FSTE 100 pension fund. The purchase price reflects a blended net initial yield of 5.8%, rising to 6.9% over the next two years.
The 526K SF portfolio comprises six properties in Stafford, Banbury, Romford, Southampton, Bristol and Aberdeen. They are leased to tenants including General Electric, Thales, Evri, Macarthys Laboratories and KCA Deutag, with a weighted average unexpired lease term of 10 years.
Separately, LondonMetric has sold an office asset let to HSBC in Edinburgh for £6M. It was acquired through the CT Property Trust takeover, and LondonMetric has now sold 14 of the 16 noncore CTPT assets at an average of 18% above original underwrite values, the company said.
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The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers has purchased 91-94 Saffron Hill, a 16,600 SF office building in the City of London, from 1908 Property Holdings for £7.6M.
Allsop advised CIBSE on the acquisition, having also advised the engineering membership body on the disposal of its long-term headquarters in Balham earlier this year.
91-94 Saffron Hill is arranged over lower ground, ground and three upper floors. CIBSE will take vacant possession as owner-occupier of the second and third floors, while the ground and lower ground floors are let to Dentists’ Provident and the first floor to GamCare.
FOR SALE
The receiver has put the commercial element of the City Relay Building on the market for £45.3M. The building on top of Aldgate East station is let to four office and education tenants and three retail occupiers.
Built in 2014, the property for sale comprises circa 106K SF of office and retail space. Harbor Group International and joint venture partner Z.C. Ronogil originally acquired The Relay Building, a 22-storey mixed-use tower that also comprises 200 apartments, for £90.75M in 2018.
LEASING
BauMont Real Estate Capital and YardNine have signed two prelet agreements totalling 35K SF at the Edenica development in the City of London.
The latest agreements, with engineering and technology company Technip Energies and Fletcher Priest Architects, follow a letting to litigation firm Boies Schiller Flexner and bring the 90K SF Grade A office development to just over 50% occupancy ahead of its expected completion later this year, the companies said.
Technip Energies will take 20K SF across the fourth and fifth floors, while Fletcher Priest Architects will occupy 15K SF over the ground, mezzanine and first floors.
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Great Portland Estates has let 6,900 SF of retail space for 10 years at 6/7 Portman Square, Orchard Court, to Gaggenau, a luxury brand for professional-grade home appliances. The brand will relocate from its site at 40 Wigmore Street, doubling its footprint.
Gaggenau is to start extensive refurbishment work in the coming months and will be the anchor of GPE’s Portman & Wigmore area, which includes 1/9 Portman Square and 132/142 Wigmore Street.
SITE SEARCHES
The company behind the Guinness World Records book and TV shows is searching for a central London site for a new £50M competitive socialising venue. It has appointed Savills to find a 25K SF to 30K SF location for the attraction, which will be called Guinness World Records vs London.
The company is set to invest £50M over five years and hopes to have the venue open by early 2026. As well as visitors competing to break official world records, the site will offer food, drink and retail options.
GWR has added TV production and business consultancy to its original publishing arm.
PEOPLE
Nuveen Real Estate has appointed Batih Van Leer and Stefano Rubini as managing directors and co-heads of its strategic transactions team in Europe.
Van Leer and Rubini will also oversee Nuveen’s European value-add series, including capital raising and deployment for an upcoming second strategy, working with Fund Manager David Pearce.
Van Leer joins Nuveen after nearly a decade at Ares, while Rubini joins after he spent the last three years at Ares and the previous six at Partners Group in Switzerland and the UK.
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CBRE has appointed Kaela Fenn-Smith as UK head of client partnerships. In this new strategic role, Fenn-Smith will lead CBRE’s key strategic clients and client partner programme.
With more than 30 years of experience in real estate, she has worked in a variety of roles in Canada and the UK, including seven years in executive leadership roles at Landsec.
