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.
Global life sciences real estate developer Breakthrough Properties has unveiled development plans for its Trinity House site in Oxford.
Breakthrough plans to transform Trinity House, at the gateway of the 88-acre ARC Oxford Business Park, into a life sciences environment featuring 169K SF of bespoke labs and offices.
Breakthrough expects to commence construction in 2023, with occupancy anticipated in 2025. Plans for the six-storey building include a series of living walls and dedicated amenity and wellbeing centres, with at least BREEAM Excellent certification, while “striving to reach BREEAM Outstanding”.
Founded in 2019 as a joint venture between real estate owner, developer and investor Tishman Speyer and biotechnology investment firm Bellco Capital, Breakthrough has approximately 5M SF of projects in its global pipeline and in 2022 acquired both Trinity House and The Vitrum Building, located inside St. John’s Innovation Park in Cambridge.
FINANCE
Pan-European real estate investment manager Tristan Capital Partners has completed the capital raising for its latest value add/opportunistic fund series, with equity commitments from investors totalling around €2B.
European Property Investors Special Opportunities 6 was fully subscribed with a total of more than 20 investors including both existing and new clients, predominantly from the pensions, family office and foundations, insurance and sovereign funds sectors.
EPISO 6 is Tristan’s 12th fund, targeting a projected 12%-14% internal rate of return by investing in western and central European real estate markets across the office, logistics, living strategies, hospitality and life sciences sectors.
EPISO 6 has made strategic investments including the acquisition of the Point A hotel brand, an office complex in the Netherlands and a residential portfolio in Leipzig, Germany, in addition to deploying capital to support a logistics acquisition strategy in Finland.
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Janus Henderson has launched the Janus Henderson Global Property Equities Fund, which offers UK-based investors a vehicle to access the global property sector.
The fund will aim to deliver long-term capital appreciation by investing in a globally diversified portfolio of REITs and listed property stocks. The fund will be available as an OEIC in the UK to retail, wholesale and institutional investors, and it will be managed as part of the existing and longstanding SICAV and U.S. Mutual vehicles.
As with the existing fund vehicles, the Global Property Equities Fund will be managed by Guy Barnard, Tim Gibson and Greg Kuhl.
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Income Insurance, a composite insurer in Singapore and CBRE Investment Management have signed an investment management agreement under which CBRE IM will take over the management of Income’s existing $3B (circa £2.5B) real estate portfolio, which includes direct and indirect holdings across APAC, North America and EMEA.
The appointment of CBRE IM follows a competitive pitch process. CBRE IM has officially taken responsibility of the mandate from 1 January.
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Global real estate investor QuadReal Property Group has acquired an interest in real estate development lending platform Précis Capital Partners and will commit up to £1B to deploy into its development loans.
TowerBrook, Précis Capital’s founding institutional shareholder, retains a significant shareholding. Précis Capital is concurrently rebranding as Precede Capital Partners.
Since its launch in March 2021, Precede Capital has originated and arranged loans totalling £1.5B to finance the construction of residential properties in the UK. With the new investment, Precede Capital expects to arrange more than £3B of loans through capital structuring via syndication and leverage.
DEVELOPMENT
Student accommodation specialist Unite Students has completed the acquisition of Jubilee House, in Stratford, London, for £73M.
The existing office building has full planning consent for a 36-storey scheme, providing 716 beds for students.
The development in Farthingale Walk, Stratford, London, will also incorporate 65K SF of academic space, which will be occupied by the London Academy of Excellence for an initial 35-year term, through the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Work is expected to begin on the scheme in the second quarter of 2023, with total development costs estimated at £185M. The student accommodation element of the scheme is scheduled for completion in time for the 2026/27 academic year.
Unite Students acquired Jubilee House from Schroders Capital UK Real Estate Fund.
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Denver-based Vantage Data Centers, a leading global provider of hyperscale data centre campuses, has entered London with the development of a 48 megawatt, £500M campus. In addition, the company has opened a second 40MW data centre on its existing Cardiff campus.
Situated on nearly 5 acres in the PowerGate area of North Acton, the campus will total 430K SF across two 24MW multistorey data centres once fully developed. The first facility will open its doors in late 2024, which will mark Vantage’s 11th campus in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
In addition to the development of its London campus, Vantage has completed the first phase (12MW) of a second 40MW facility at its growing Cardiff campus. Once fully developed, the 46-acre campus will include three data centres totalling 148MW across 2M SF.
In December 2021, Vantage established an office in Farringdon, London, to support its operations across EMEA.
ACQUISITIONS
Grocery property specialist Supermarket Income REIT has announced an update in relation to its joint venture with British Airways Pension Trustees Limited.
The company has acquired BAPTL’s 25.5% beneficial interest in the Sainsbury's Reversion Portfolio for £196M, resulting in the company’s beneficial interest in the SRP Portfolio increasing to 51%. The remaining 49% is held by Sainsbury's.
The SRP Portfolio comprises freeholds to 26 Sainsbury’s supermarkets of which 21 properties will be acquired by Sainsbury’s for £1B in two tranches in March 2023 and July 2023. The acquisition has been funded entirely by a new debt facility provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank.
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Aviva Investors has acquired an urban distribution warehouse at Suttons Business Park, located on the outskirts of Reading, Berkshire.
The single-let unit spans more than 210K SF and features 53 cross-docking bays with space for more than 140 vehicles and an integrated three-storey office facility as well as a decked 200-space car park.
It has attained an EPC B rating and BREEAM Very Good certification and comes with scope for solar PV panelling to be installed on the rooftop of the unit and decked car park at a future date, according to Aviva.
It is currently leased to UK food and distribution company Brakes.
LEASING
Jewellery retailer Pandora has signed a lease with GPE for a new concept store in London at 70/88 Oxford Street, taking the retail space in the scheme to 96% let.
Pandora will occupy the prime corner unit of the Oxford Street development, located directly opposite the Tottenham Court Road Elizabeth Line exit, on Dean Street. The jewellery brand has acquired space across two floors, with double-height signage.
The new unit will be Pandora’s third on Oxford Street, but its first one east of Oxford Circus. Pandora will join Boom: Battle Bar and fashion retailer Reserved, occupying 19.6K SF, at 70/88 Oxford Street, set to open Q3 2023.
