Wells Fargo has financed Clearbell Capital’s £155m purchase of the Amber portfolio.
The US lender has extended a five-year loan of close to £100m, or about 65% of the value of the UK portfolio.
The 1.9m sq ft portfolio, bought from Aberdeen Asset Management, includes 29 industrial, office and retail warehouse assets located in Nottingham, Glasgow, Milton Keynes and Sheffield. They include tenants such as Sports Direct and Travis Perkins.
The prospect for asset management and Clearbell’s business plan over the term of the loan for the good secondary assets, as well as their diverse nature and consistent income stream that reduces risk, made the deal attractive.
The average vacancy rate across the portfolio was 4.5% at the time of purchase with an average unexpired lease term of 4.5 years and an annual rent roll of more than £13m.
Wells and Clearbell have a history of working together in their pre-2013 guises as Eurohypo and Mountgrange.
This deal is the latest in what has been an active year for Wells. It is backing Lone Star in its £700m acquisition of Quintain Estates and Development with a £425m loan and in April it refinanced up to £200m for West End fund WELPUT.
It was also part of a February mega-deal in which it and Blackstone acquired GE Capital’s $23bn (£14.7bn) of real estate assets. The deal added $1.7bn of performing UK loans to Wells’ book.
