Helical has said the works at its Barts Square scheme in Farringdon, EC1, will complete this year as planned after the firm was forced in January to bring in contractors Mace, McLaren and QOB to replace collapsed contractor Carillion.
The investment and development company added that although there had been some delay to the project from Carillion’s liquidation, the majority of additional costs is expected to be covered by existing contingencies.
In a trading update for the period 1 October 2017 to 28 March 2018, Helical reported that out of the 144 flats in the first phase of the residential element at Barts Square, sales of 71 residential units, totalling £86m, had completed, with a further 59 sales exchanged totalling £80m.
In the second wave of residential comprising 92 units at the project, which launched on 8 March, 22 have already been reserved for an aggregate £30.1m. This phase is expected to be completed by October 2019.
Office project presold
One Bartholomew Close, the 12-storey office building at the scheme being finished off by Mace and due for completion in the fourth quarter of this year, has been pre-sold to clients of Ashby Capital LLP.
Elsewhere at Helical’s East London office scheme One Creechurch Place, whose tenants include Hyperion, Travelers, Enstar and Dell, Helical said the 15,994 sq ft sixth floor is under offer to an unnamed party.
Helical’s chief executive Gerald Kaye said the firm had yet to dispose of a “couple” more small non-core assets, having sold already £325m of assets in the past six months. These sales include its industrial portfolio for £170m to Blackstone and M7 Real Estate, as part of a repositioning of the portfolio.
Helical’s core portfolio now consists of eight London projects and four Manchester assets, including the recent award of an office scheme above the new Crossrail station at Farringdon from Transport for London, with which it has agreed a £50m five-year development and investment facility. The company is now looking to build on the “nucleus of a portfolio” it has created, chief executive Gerald Kaye said.
Accounting specifics
The firm reported that it has £96m of cash with net borrowings of £373m and £77m of uncharged investment properties.
During the period, Helical repaid its £102m investment facility with Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG and refinanced its projects The Loom, E1, and Churchgate and Lee House in Manchester, with Aviva.
The firm also reported it had increased its investment facility with Aviva by £45m to take it to £124m, which is due for repayment in December 2024.
Helical also repaid its outstanding £54m debt on its revolving credit facility with Barclays and reduced the facility from £90m to £50m, and reduced the amount drawn down on its £100m revolving credit facility with RBS/HSBC by a net £38m, leaving £23m outstanding and £77m undrawn.
The firm has subsequently cancelled around £180m of interest rate swaps for varying lengths with an average swap rate of around 2.1% at a cost of £5.1m, which will reduce the expected EPRA NAV per share at 31 March 2018 by 4.3p. However,
Helical said this would correspond with a reduction in future interest costs per year of initially of £3.5m.
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