Aprirose has sold a leisure investment portfolio – Project Red Apple – to BlackRock for £23m.
The portfolio comprises 13 pub assets let to pub company Stonegate.
The properties have an unexpired lease term of 22.5 years at a rent of around £1.4m – a yield of 5.5%.
The 13 assets in the portfolio are: The Slug and Lettuce, Southend-on-Sea; The Surrey Arms, Camberley; The Station, Eastleigh; The Slug and Lettuce, Derby; Yates’s, Leicester; The Prince of Wales, Chatham; The Prince of Wales, Chorley; The Burlington, Chesterfield; The Merchant, Glasgow; The Mailbox, Lincoln; The Crafty Scholar, Lancaster; Yates’s, Blackpool; and The Castle, Blackpool.
Mark Sheehan, managing director, Coffer Corporate Leisure, said: “This was an off-market transaction which worked well for both parties. The public house market in particular is in huge demand, with appetite significantly outstripping supply. Lack of stock remains our biggest issue.”
Geoffrey Shaw, portfolio manager at BlackRock, said: “Pubs provide a great diversifier for our clients as the demand drivers have a low correlation to other sectors such as hotels, offices or car parks. The assets are run by a very experienced management team and the individual lot sizes make the properties very liquid.”
Coffer Corporate Leisure advised the vendor; Fleurets advised BlackRock.
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