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.
Long Harbour, the specialist development and operational real estate firm, will expand its living sector focus into purpose-built student accommodation through a joint venture with Rosethorn Capital Partners.
The strategy will be led by Rosethorn CEO Stephen Rigby, a founder and chief investment officer at Student Roost, which was acquired by GIC and Greystar in 2022 for £3.34B. The properties will be managed by Long Harbour’s residential management platform, Way of Life, which will add PBSA to its specialist focus on build-to-rent and single-family homes.
Long Harbour will target high-spec, accessible student accommodation with an initial focus across the UK’s major university hubs to build a portfolio of up to 10,000 beds over the next five to seven years, the company said.
FINANCE
Silbury Finance, the Oaktree Capital Management-backed development lender, has provided a joint venture established by Audley Group and Senior Living Investment Partners with a £66.5M loan. The 53-month senior facility will fund the acquisition and development of a 112-residence Audley retirement scheme in Surrey.
Known as Headley Court, the 23-acre site is less than 2 miles from Leatherhead and will consist of 12 two-bedroom apartments within a redeveloped Grade II-listed historic mansion, along with 100 newly constructed apartments and houses.
The transaction is the fifth between Silbury and Octopus Real Estate in the retirement sector, and Silbury has lent £750M in the UK living sector since 2021.
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Last-mile real estate specialist Valor Real Estate Partners has secured a £64M debt facility with BGO for the development of a 216K SF high-specification last-mile logistics estate in Beckton, east London. It is the first transaction between the two parties.
The five-year facility will enable Valor to refinance the original acquisition of the 10-acre site and develop four self-contained logistics units ranging from 27K SF to 80K SF, the company said.
The development is due to complete in the fourth quarter of 2024 and is targeting a BREEAM Excellent certification. Valor assembled the estate via two off-market acquisitions from separate owners and received planning consent for the development earlier this year.
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Investec Real Estate has provided Moorfield, a UK-focused real estate fund manager, with a £15.6M facility to fund the development of a 293-bed purpose-built student accommodation campus in Lincoln.
The development is already under construction and due to complete ahead of the 2024-25 academic year. Comprising four three-storey townhouses and five four-storey buildings, features will include an on-site reception and laundry facilities.
In 2022, Investec passed £1B of lending in the student accommodation sector, having funded 22,000 beds across 55 schemes in 23 UK cities since 2011. This is Investec’s second student deal with Moorfield, having previously provided a £19M loan for the development of a 282-bed PBSA scheme in Colchester.
DEALS
Macquarie Asset Management, on behalf of Just Group, has partnered with clients to invest £400M in notes related to a portfolio of commercial ground leases secured against a portfolio of 55 Asda supermarket sites across the UK.
The transaction has enabled Asda Group to raise £400M of alternative long-term financing while retaining its freehold property interests.
This investment, in partnership with Just Group, follows previous activity between the two businesses including financing the development of specialist healthcare service facilities in Southampton.
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Fiera Real Estate and Wrenbridge have acquired a 2.6-acre site on Britannia Road, Waltham Cross. The business plan is to speculatively develop a midbox urban logistics unit with a gross development value of circa £25M.
This represents the sixth acquisition for the Fiera Real Estate Logistics Development Fund UK, which has a further £200M to invest in similar logistics sites across the UK.
The site is situated on a well-established industrial estate. The strategy is to obtain planning and speculatively build a 61K SF logistics scheme comprising a first-floor office at 5,800 SF and a mezzanine at 6,400 SF.
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Crossbay, the pan-European last-mile logistics platform owned by Mark, has added over 500K SF to its UK portfolio with the acquisition of four assets for a combined £80M.
Crossbay, which recently announced deals in Italy and the Netherlands as part of its new vehicle, has purchased initial assets in Watford, Leeds and Farnborough.
Crossbay acquired a 165K SF business park in Watford from Eskmuir Properties Ltd, a 135K SF warehouse in Leeds, a 169K SF warehouse in Dewsbury’s Shawcross Business Park, and a 41K SF warehouse in Farnborough from Workspace Group.
LEASING
CFC, a specialist insurance provider in cyber, is the latest occupier to sign up to 8 Bishopsgate, taking 90K SF over six floors at the office building, owned by Mitsubishi Estate London and being developed by Stanhope, bringing the scheme to 80% let or under offer.
The space taken by CFC covers the 10th through 15th floors and includes a landscaped terrace on Level 11.
Newmark BH2 and Knight Frank acted for Mitsubishi Estate London and Stanhope. HK London acted for CFC.
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Regal London, in partnership with Platform, a mixed-use flexible workspace operator, have launched their debut coworking brand at Shoreditch Exchange. All spaces will be operated on flexible terms with offices for up to 382 people on rolling membership terms and hot desks and meeting rooms all available to book by the day.
Shoreditch Exchange comprises 140K SF of office space over eight floors with private offices, shared workspace and two outdoor terraces. Built and owned by Regal London, the development completed in 2020 and includes 184 homes and over 43K SF of commercial and retail space.
CORPORATE
CoStar Group, the commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplace specialist, has completed its acquisition of OnTheMarket, a UK residential property portal.
CoStar announced a recommended cash offer of 110 pence per share for OnTheMarket in October, valuing the company at approximately £99M, to be implemented by a scheme of arrangement. The shareholders meetings to vote on the scheme were held on 4 December, and the scheme was approved by over 97% in value of OnTheMarket shareholders voting.
PEOPLE
Aldi has created a new national real estate team as it looks to deliver its plan to open 500 new UK stores.
The UK’s fourth-largest supermarket announced a long-term plan to operate 1,500 UK stores — and the distribution network to service them — to meet growing demand.
Its new centralised team, headed by Jonathan Neale, managing director of real estate, is being aided by Colliers as the company’s national advisers. The supermarket group is typically looking for freehold town centre or edge-of-town sites of around 1.5 acres that can accommodate a 20K SF store with approximately 100 parking spaces.
It is particularly interested in sites in London and the south-east, where it wants to open 200 new stores.
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Thriving Investments, formerly known as PfP Capital, has appointed Adam Tutka to the newly created role of director of capital markets. Tutka will be responsible for expanding Thriving Investment’s social impact product range and growing the current £700M of funds under management.
Tutka brings over 12 years of real estate experience within the fund management and private equity space, ranging from local government pension funds to sovereign wealth funds. He joins Thriving Investments from Greystar, where he was senior director overseeing UK and European growth funds under management in the living sector.
