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. 

Royal London Asset Management Property has acquired Buildings 1000, 2000 and 9000 at Cambridge Research Park from Zurich Assurance in a £44M deal that has increased the company’s ownership of the park to 385K SF, representing 94% of the park’s net internal area. 

Building 1000 comprises 36K SF of Grade A office accommodation across the ground and first floors, and the building is let to a mix of information technology companies and service providers.

Building 2000 is being refurbished, and the current works are set to improve the energy performance certificate rating to B. Future refurbishment plans are being reviewed to create lab-enabled space on the ground floor. Building 9000 consists of 64K SF of office and production space across two floors. The building is a let on a long lease to a telecoms and radio development company.

“The acquisitions of four prime buildings at Cambridge Research Park mark a strategic milestone in expanding our life sciences portfolio,” Royal London Asset Management Property Head of Life Sciences Will Hawking said in a statement. “This acquisition allows the team to consolidate our ownership and continue our strategy to deliver a wider campus masterplan to support the next phases of development.” 

DEALS

Pan-European real estate private equity investment manager ActivumSG, on behalf of ActivumSG Fund VII and working with Global Hospitality Investment Group, has acquired Sutton Point, a hotel-led mixed-use asset in London, for £21M.

Upon closing, the nonhospitality elements — residential, retail and freehold interest — of the scheme were sold in back-to-back disposals, which de-risked the transaction and allowed for the retention of the two hotels, the company said.

The hotels are a 99-key Ibis hotel and a 59-key Adagio aparthotel, while the retained hospitality assets were financed with a senior loan provided by Leumi UK.

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Helical has completed the sale of its 50% interest in Charterhouse Place, the owner of The JJ Mack Building, London EC1, to its joint venture partner, AshbyCapital, for £71.4M.

At the sale date, the building generated contracted rent of £17.4M and was 90% let to six office tenants, including Sainsbury’s and Partners Group. An additional three retail units are let to Sainsbury’s and E.On Next. The £71.4M net sale proceeds will be used to fund the group’s development pipeline, Helical said.

Completed in September 2022, The JJ Mack Building was named after the market trader who occupied the site in the 1940s. The 10-storey building comprises 201K SF of offices, 9,200 SF of terrace space and 5,500 SF of ground-floor retail space.

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Greycoat has acquired the office building at 90 High Holborn, WC1, from LabTech Investments in a deal valued at £180M. 

The acquisition concludes LabTech Investments’ four-year attempt to divest the property. Tenants include the U.S. law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which recently expanded its office space within the property.

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Sirius Real Estate has completed the acquisition of a multilet light industrial park in Carnforth, Lancashire, for £9M, representing an 11.4% net initial yield, including acquisition costs.

The park is just north of Lancaster and will add 172K SF of light industrial space to the group’s UK portfolio and has been made using proceeds of a recent capital raise in July.

The freehold asset is fully let to eight tenants and produces a net operating income of £1.1M per annum at an average rate of £6.47 per SF, with a weighted average unexpired lease term of 5.6 years. The site has planning permission for approximately 35K SF of new industrial space. 

CORPORATE

M&G Real Estate has acquired a 65% stake in BauMont Real Estate Capital, a European real estate fund manager specialising in value-add investment strategies in Europe.

Established in 2017, BauMont is based in Paris and London with €1.5B of assets under management. The acquisition is part of M&G’s strategy to “selectively add investment capabilities in areas where active management has the potential to deliver alpha to clients over medium to long-term investment horizons,” the company said.

Separately, M&G’s With-Profits Fund is investing €200M in BauMont’s latest fund for European value-add property in the UK and France for its wider £13B real estate allocation.

LEASING

Following an agreement signed with the European Medicines Agency, WeWork will continue to operate its 286K SF flagship location at 30 Churchill Place in Canary Wharf, offering flexible space to businesses. 

WeWork has also teamed up with indoor golf club Pitch, which will open the 14,500 SF Pitch Wharf in January, including 11 golf bays, an academy, two bars and a restaurant on WeWork’s promenade. 

FUNDING

Fund manager Thriving Investments, part of Places for People, has formed a partnership with alternative fund manager Gresham House to create a new affordable housing fund management platform.

The partnership will manage Gresham House Residential Secure Income, a UK shared ownership strategy, which will be renamed ReSI.

To date, the fund has deployed nearly £200M on a portfolio of 1,557 affordable homes across England, of which more than 1,100 are operational. It has £120M of capital to deploy and is actively fundraising, targeting a shared ownership portfolio of more than £1B in the next five years, the companies said.

PLANNING

Landsec’s regeneration arm, LandsecU+I, has submitted a hybrid planning application to turn a former 1970s shopping centre into a new town centre district for Lewisham. If consented, the 17-acre master plan will deliver 1,700 new homes alongside 445 co-living residences and up to 660 student beds.

The new district will be set around 8 acres of accessible green space and public realm, including an urban meadow. Landsec has been the owner of Lewisham Shopping Centre for more than 20 years, and the plans have been designed to retain the existing centre where possible, allowing it to remain open and for development to be delivered in phases. 

PEOPLE

Cushman & Wakefield has appointed Henry Fellows as its new head of central London development. Follows joins as a partner and has more than 15 years’ experience in delivering central London development and agency advice on land acquisitions and disposals across all use classes. He has previously held roles at Gerald Eve, CBRE, Capital Real Estate and JLL.