Westbrook Partners has seen off rivals to acquire Mansford’s industrial portfolio for £162m as demand for UK industrial and logistics assets continues to soar.
The sale price of the portfolio, the Sterling Industrial Holding Unit Trust, was 4% above the £156m quote from Knight Frank, which acted for Mansford, and represents a yield of 6.75%.
Spread across the UK, the portfolio’s 28 industrial estates, which total more than 3m sq ft, include the Lympne Distribution Park in Folkestone and the Trident Trade Park in Cardiff (pictured).
The annual rent from the portfolio’s 303 tenants totals more than £11m and the weighted average unexpired lease term is 7.5 years. The portfolio has a vacancy rate 7.4%.
Investment in industrial and logistics assets has surged over the past two years and the start of 2018 has continued this trend, according to research from BNP Paribas Real Estate.
In the first quarter of 2018 volumes transacted hit £1.96bn, 17.1% ahead of the £1.67bn transacted in the same period last year and a new record for Q1, the firm reported.
Industrial and logistics take-up in the first quarter this year also reached 9.8m sq ft, the highest Q1 on record, driven by the expansion of online retailing, with the retail sector accounting for 45.6% of take-up.
CBRE has also reported in its annual EMEA Investor Intentions Survey that for the first time industrial and logistics space has overtaken office space to become the most sought-after sector by European investors.
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