Industrial investor Hansteen has agreed to the £116m sale of the Industrial Multi Property Trust portfolio to an entity owned by Warehouse REIT.
The buyer will acquire the 51-strong UK portfolio, offering circa 500 leasable units with a total floor area of approximately 1.7m sq ft and a passing rent roll of £8m pa at 30 June 2017, through the sale and purchase of certain subsidiaries of Industrial Multi Property Trust. Around 93% by floor area is invested in light industrial property and 7% in workspace and offices.
The sale by Hansteen means it will have seen a strong return on its investment over a short period. At the end of 2016 the IMPT portfolio was valued at £85.3m. Post-acquisition (in April 2017) it was subsequently valued at £90.5m at the end of June.
The portfolio is being sold on a debt free basis for cash, and the value attributed to the portfolio. The sale is expected to complete at the end of March 2018. There are no conditions to completion.
Ian Watson and Morgan Jones, joint chief executives of Hansteen, said: “In line with our intentions set out in the original IMPT offer document dated 22 February 2017, we absorbed the portfolio into our UK property asset management platform and were in the process of successfully increasing the occupancy and income across the portfolio.
“However, during the successful implementation of this strategy, we received an unsolicited approach from Warehouse REIT to acquire the portfolio at a level which provides a return in excess of our initial expectations and which we were willing to accept. In the short term we plan to use part of the proceeds to reduce the balance on our revolving debt facility. Going forward, the board will consider new acquisition opportunities or distributions to shareholders.”
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