Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker has won a contract to advise Motorola on its 3.5m sq ft portfolio across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Jones Lang LaSalle narrowly lost out to CWHB for the mandate to provide strategic advice and manage transactions across the EMEA portfolio of the world’s second largest manufacturer of mobile phones.
Tim Tourville, Motorola’s director of real estate and facilities operations for EMEA, said he would be looking at a range of options for the portfolio, including sale-and-leasebacks.
CWHB’s global corporate services partner, Nick Giraudeau, will be Motorola’s main point of contact. He joined just three months ago from Colliers International Corporate Services.
More than half the estate, which is made up of offices and manufacturing plants, is in the UK, France, Germany and Israel, with the rest spread over 42 other countries.
Also in the telecoms sector, Land Securities Trillium has emerged as front runner for the outsourcing of the 2.3m sq ft Cable & Wireless estate in the UK and Ireland.
London & Regional Properties is no longer bidding for the portfolio. The other parties in the competition are Mapeley, Arlington and former MEPC directors Jamie Dundas’s and Robert Ware’s new company Oxiana. A decision is expected later this month.
As revealed by EG (31 July, p21), the UK’s biggest alternative telecoms carrier wants to sell and lease back 23 freeholds and long leaseholds worth £50m.
Bids had to include specific proposals for C&W’s London estate, which includes its leasehold headquarters at 124 Theobalds Road, WC1.
Under the 15-year contract, C&W also plans to transfer its liabilities for around 157 short leasehold properties, 50% of which are surplus.
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Cable & Wireless estate |
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The C&W portfolio includes: 13 occupied office/industrial properties; 71 occupied mixed office and technical properties connected to C&W’s network; 43 unoccupied, mainly light industrial properties, supporting the C&W network; and 53 wholly sublet or vacant properties. |
