LondonMetric Property has completed a flurry of sales and acquisitions totalling more than £76m.
The company has sold seven properties in separate transactions for £31.3m, reflecting a blended net initial yield of 7% and a 3% profit over prevailing book values.
A 41,000 sq ft retail park in Ipswich let to Wickes, Topps Tiles, McDonalds and Costa, was sold for £10.2m and a B&M retail store in Stourbridge, which was a former Mucklow asset, sold for £2.8m.
LondonMetric has also sold a 106,000 sq ft Asda foodstore in Scotland for £10.5m, two former Cazoo car showrooms in Edinburgh and Cardiff for £6.4m and a Travelodge hotel and a pub for £1.4m. These three properties were non-core LXi REIT assets, which were sold at 5% ahead of prevailing book values.
LondonMetric has also acquired six reversionary urban warehouse assets for £45m, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.1% and a reversionary yield of 6.6%.
The assets, which have a WAULT of 7.6 years, comprise a 106,000 sq ft warehouse in Cardiff let to Booker, a 95,000 sq ft warehouse in Milton Keynes let to Ingram Content Group, a 30,000 sq ft multi-let warehouse in York, a 28,000 sq ft multi-let warehouse in Reading and two warehouses totalling 37,000 sq ft in Derby and Huntingdon, acquired through a 15-year sale and leaseback with Travis Perkins.
Andrew Jones, chief executive of LondonMetric, said: “We are delighted to have exited these non-core assets and reinvested the proceeds into much higher quality assets, which offer superior rental growth potential. We are continually looking to upgrade the quality of our portfolio and exit lower growth assets outside of our core sectors or those that do not meet our return criteria. As such, we expect to announce further disposals shortly.”
