London & Scottish Investments and Toscafund have launched the UK’s first regionally focused real estate investment trust.
Regional REIT, which listed on the London Stock Exchange this week, is seeded with £386m of office and industrial properties in the UK.
The existing family office and high net worth investors in the two closed-ended funds that were invested in the London & Scottish and Toscafund vehicles will sell their interests via an £80m private placement.
The offer has been fully subscribed, said London & Scottish group property director Stephen Inglis, attracting “household name” institutional investors.
The placement and further sale of shares on listing at 100p per share are expected to raise a total of £274m for the REIT to fund further acquisitions.
Inglis said the REIT would target secondary assets sized between £5m and £30m being sold by parties that bought large NPL portfolios earlier in the cycle.
It is to be geared to a maximum of 35% and offer a predicted dividend yield of 7-8%.
