A trio of fund managers has cherry-picked the bulk of the National Grid Pension Fund’s dismantled Volt portfolio for nearly £140m.
A pair of Aviva funds are paying £61m – a 4.85% yield – for the leisure portion of the portfolio, comprising seven Premier Inn hotels.
Aviva is splitting the purchase between its Lime Property Fund and the Staff Pension Fund.
Invesco, meanwhile, has gone under offer to buy a Tesco supermarket in Southwark, SE1, for around £47m, or a 4.3% yield.
The supermarket is long let to the beleaguered retailer, with the potential alternative asset value in the lucrative Southwark residential development submarket also a major attraction.
LaSalle Investment Management, which originally purchased the property for National Grid, has placed under offer a £30m Spire private hospital on behalf of the Northern Ireland Local Government Offices Superannuation Committee.
The deals bring the total raised to £168m, after BlackRock bought an RAC call centre in Bristol for £30m late last year.
National Grid decided to break up the sale of the package – put on the market last October – amid growing concern about the fortunes of Tesco, which accounted for around two-fifths of the portfolio’s value.
A source said: “Dismantling the portfolio made some question the market but shows that interest is strong, if specialised.”
The remaining assets – an RAC office in Walsall and a Tesco in Enfield, Middlesex – have yet to be sold but have received expressions of interest.
CBRE is advising National Grid Pension Fund. JLL acted for Invesco; Knight Frank represented BlackRock; GVA acted for LaSalle IM.
chris.berkin@estatesgazette.com
