Benson Elliot Capital Management and Kames Capital have gone under offer to buy a £100m portfolio of properties let to Mecca Bingo.
The two parties will each take on half of the UK-wide portfolio, known as Project Earth, for around £50m each.
It comprises 42 buildings, around 20% of which are in London and the South East.
The weighted average unexpired lease term is 7.5 years.
The assets are being sold by Earth Properties, a joint venture between Pears Group and Tony Khalastchi, with Lloyds Banking Group as lender.
They represent the bulk of a wider portfolio of assets put up for sale in March – a week after it was announced in the budget that tax on bingo halls would be halved. The portfolio also included a string of Grosvenor casinos. The sale price represents a yield of around 10.5% on a rent roll of around £9.5m pa.
A number of other assets owned by the jv were sold at auction earlier in the year. Its most expensive asset – the 71,138 sq ft Victoria Casino on Edgware Road, W2 – was bought for £55.5m by Aprirose Investors in July.
Savills acted for Benson Elliott; Allsop advised Kames Capital; Knight Frank and Lewis & Partners represented the vendor.
chris.berkin@estatesgazette.com
