Le mie ricette per la real estate communityHansteen Holdings , the UK and Continental property investment company, announces that it has sold 27 UK assets during Q4 2013 for a total of £76.4 million, reflecting a net initial yield of 7.1%. The sales show a profit of £10.8 million over gross acquisition cost and £6.9 million over December 2012 valuation. As some of the properties were in funds that Hansteen manage and co-invest in, Hansteen’s share of the profit will be £4.2 million. The disposals comprise 16 individual assets and a portfolio of 11 estates in the South West of England. The sales included Horndon Industrial Estate, Essex, The Malthouse Estate, Shoreham, Sussex and Vernon Park, Wolverhampton.
Horndon Industrial Park is a 26 acre multi-let estate comprising 626,407 sq ft of industrial, office and yard space located four miles from Junction 29 of the M25 and adjacent to West Horndon Railway Station. Since acquiring the asset from Easter Investments in September 2012, Hansteen has successfully reduced the vacancy from 25.8% to 10.7% and undertaken over £300,000 p.a. in lease renewals. In addition, through an extensive consultation process, Hansteen has achieved an allocation in the draft local plan for residential development. The estate was sold to a UK institution at £22.6 million, representing a net initial yield of 6.9% which will rise from additional lettings and rental growth.
The Malthouse Estate, Shoreham which comprises five 1980s industrial units (58,261sq ft), was acquired by the Hansteen Property Unit Trust (HPUT) in 2010 for £4.6m, in the knowledge that 40% (24,273sq ft) would be vacated imminently. The purchase was motivated by the asset management potential of the estate driven by its prime road side frontage. In 2013, Hansteen re-let the vacated units to NEXT, Screwfix and Howdens on an average lease term of 11.6 years at an average rent of £8.30 per sq ft. The fully let estate has been sold to a private property company for £6.4 million, representing a net initial yield of 6.1%.
Vernon Park, Wolverhampton comprises three high specification warehouse units and a 6.9 acre development site acquired as part of the Kilmartin portfolio in 2010. One unit was sold on a long leasehold basis in 2012. The remaining properties of 30,936 sq ft and 55,724 sq ft were let to Joseph Joseph and Mann + Hummel UK on a five and a 12 year term respectively. The property was sold by HPUT for £7.8 million to Colliers Capital achieving a 7.2% net initial yield on the buildings and £275,000 per acre on the development land.
A further 13 individual UK commercial properties were sold at £14.4 million, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.71%.
Hansteen and HPUT have also sold an 11 asset portfolio of multi-let industrial estates located across the South West. The portfolio, totalling 373,842 sq ft, includes Aztec West Business Park in Bristol, Treloggan Industrial Estate in Newquay and Kernick Road, Falmouth. The portfolio was sold with 93.5% occupancy following extensive asset management since the first estate was purchased in 2011. Hansteen has undertaken 91 transactions since acquisition, letting 102,426 sq ft of new space and carrying out some £473,000 of lease renewals. The portfolio was sold to a UK institution for £25.2 million, representing a net initial yield of 7.9%.
Morgan Jones, joint chief executive of Hansteen, commented “These sales are precisely in line with our strategy of buying at high yields with significant vacancies, managing the properties intensively through our teams on the ground, and then selling at lower yields to satisfy institutional demand.”
Mark Ovens, Director (UK), added “At the beginning of 2013 we sensed that Q4 would be a good time to sell multi let industrials. We spent the summer preparing a group of properties, marketed them in September and sold them in late December, predominantly to institutional buyers. It is good to see the institutions back buying multi let industrial property, and in so doing, acknowledging the resilient income stream and that rental growth is starting to return to the sector.”
These disposals follow shortly after the announcement on 23 December 2013 that Hansteen had purchased a loan secured against a portfolio of mainly multi-let light industrial property in the Netherlands from UniCredit Bank AG for €41.675 million, representing a 51% discount to the loan.
Source : Company