The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has confirmed an £18m refinancing deal with Oxenwood Catalina, a Carribean-based investment joint venture formed by Oxenwood Real Estate and Catalina Holdings.
The extra cash has allowed the Bermuda registered partnership to make its second purchase following its maiden acquisition last October of Maplin Electronics UK headquarters and distribution centre near Rotherham. It paid the Merseyside Pension Fund £15.1m for the 198,422 sq ft property.
“The acquisition of the Maplin centre is the first in a pipeline of transactions across the UK which we are considering and represents an excellent seed asset,” said Oxenwood Catalina co-founding partner, Stewart Little, at the time. “Despite increasing equity flows we are encouraged by the range of opportunities we are seeing and we very much look forward to progressing our investment programme.”
In tandem with the RBS agreement, the joint venture company has now bought the DHL Supply Chain distribution warehouse at Aston Lane North, Preston Brook, Runcorn, for almost £21m. The debt facility is being secured against both logistics properties.
The 650,313 sq ft warehouse — situated on a well-established hub strategically placed between Manchester and Liverpool — was purchased from DHL as part of a lease-back deal. The logistics giant has agreed a new 10-year lease at an annual rent of £1.827m.
“We are pleased to have made another acquisition, increasing the joint venture’s total investment to £36m,” explained fellow co-founding partner, Jeremy Bishop.
“We are also delighted to have worked with RBS to refinance the portfolio which meets our strategy of conservative gearing whilst nevertheless generating a double digit cash return to the joint venture investors. We look forward to continuing our relationship with RBS on future transactions in the pipeline,” he added.
Jamie Bennie-Coulson is an associate director at RBS Real Estate who said his bank was delighted to have assisted Oxenwood Catalina with the £18m financing deal. “This facility has enabled us to support both an experienced team in Oxenwood and an existing customer of the bank, Catalina, whilst demonstrating RBS’ continuing commitment to the UK real estate market,” said Bennie-Coulson.
Before co-founding their joint venture company, Little and Bishop spent eight years working together at London and Stamford Property, now re-launched as the FTSE 250-listed LondonMetric Property.
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