Two of the UK’s largest fund managers have backed a new strategic land fund set up by developer Welbeck Land.
Aberdeen Asset Management and LaSalle Investment Management are injecting a total of more than £25m from two UK pension funds into the Welbeck Strategic Land partnership. It is led by former Lovells head of real estate Bob Kidby, who joined Welbeck Land in May.
The investment will be matched by the Howard de Walden family, which owns 90 acres of London’s Marylebone, and the management team of the landed estate’s development division Welbeck Land.
The partnership does not buy sites, but enters into “promotion agreements” with landowners to obtain planning permission on land that has been identified in local planning policies as suitable for housing. When it gains permission, the “oven-ready” sites can then be sold to a housebuilder. The partnership recoups its outlay on planning and also takes around a 20% share of the sale price.
It is the first time Aberdeen Asset Management has invested in the residential strategic land market. Director Malcolm Tibbits said: “At the beginning of 2009 we started looking to see areas that presented opportunities going forward. We identified that strategic land for residential purposes has associated risks but has its place in a portfolio.”
He added that the company still had a strategic land requirement and would consider investing more in the partnership or other investment funds in “areas of mutual interest” established by Welbeck.
Kidby said the partnership aimed to find a way of unlocking the key between the planning system and the national shortage of housing stock.
To date, the partnership, which became official last month, has a pipeline of 24 sites covering 2,000 acres earmarked for 12,000 houses under contract. It mainly focuses on London and the South East.
Jones Lang LaSalle Corporate Finance advised Aberdeen and LIM.
bridget.o’connell@estatesgazette.com
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