More than £24m has changed hands in four separate West Midlands and Welsh commercial property deals. The biggest transaction — worth £17.4m — involves a yet to be completed retail park.
Aberdeen Asset Management has bought the St Modwen developed Technology Retail Park in Rugby on behalf of one of its clients. The 100,000 sq ft complex is due for completion this September and was 100 per cent pre-let before construction began last year.
The retail site is a key part of St Modwen’s £70m regeneration project for the former industrial area of Rugby. “This sale is very good news for the region,” commented senior development surveyor, Peter Rudd. “It represents a sub-six per cent yield and demonstrates a confidence in the area following our ten-year regeneration of the former Alstom site.
“The swift letting of the units, ten months before their completion, combined with this sale to investors from outside the Midlands, is evidence of the strength of the development we have created and the region’s economy as a whole,” he added.
St Modwen was represented by Morgan Williams with Colliers acting for Aberdeen.
Elsewhere in the region and north Wales, Knight Frank has completed a trio of property investment deals totalling more than £7m.
Real Estate Investors paid just under £2.5m for Castlegate House, on Dudley’s Castlegate Business Park.
Acting for Granite Telford, the firm’s capital markets team in Birmingham has sold Stafford Park 15 in Telford to Pears Property for just over £3.1m. The multi-let industrial estate — totalling 90,552 sq ft across 16 units — is fully let to 14 tenants at an average annual rent of £347,648.
The same team, this time acting for Aberdeen Asset Management, has also sold Castlegate House, on Castlegate Business Park, Dudley, to Stock Exchange-listed Real Estate Investors for £2.44m. The entire 21,375 sq ft Grade A office building is let to Towergate Underwriting Group Ltd, trading as Footman James, on a ten year lease.
The final Knight Frank deal involves the sale and leaseback of Unit 13 on Zone Two of Bangor’s Llandygai Industrial Estate. A.F. Blakemore & Son sold the 40,472 sq ft industrial unit to Sami Property for £1.48m, with Blakemore taking an immediate 15 year lease at a rental of £2.75 per sq ft.
“These deals highlight our strong links with investors and occupiers alike and demonstrate our ability to successfully transact non-institutional property investments,” said Jonathan Devaney, a partner in the capital markets team at Knight Frank in Birmingham.
