Oxford University’s Magdalen College has sold a 40% stake in Oxford Science Park for more than 10 times its 2016 valuation.
The £160m stake has been bought by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC for £160m, valuing the whole park at around £400m.
Magaladen bought the 50% stake it did not own in the park for £18.1m from M&G Real Estate in 2016.
The college put the stake up for sale through Cushman & Wakefield in May this year to raise money to help develop the rest of the Oxford Science Park.
Several state-of-the-art facilities are planned for 23 acres of development land at the Oxford Science Park, with the capacity to add at least a further 500,000 sq ft. Construction of the first of these is expected to start before the end of the year, with further detail of the overall development masterplan set to be released “in due course”.
Rory Maw, chief executive of Oxford Science Park and bursar at Magdalen College Oxford, said he looked forward to working with GIC to enhance the park’s position “as the science park of choice for leading science and technology companies”.
He added: “As a long-term investor with a strategic outlook, its objectives are aligned with ours, those of our occupiers and of Magdalen College. As well as being an enormous demonstration of confidence in the UK – and Oxford in particular – as a leading location for international life science and technology, this is a transformational investment for the Oxford Science Park.
“It enables us to meet unprecedented demand for high-quality laboratory and office space and to support the ambitious growth of new and existing occupiers from the UK and abroad.”
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