Steve Ferris and Richard Saint, former vice-presidents of Prologis Kingspark, have tied up their largest deal. Their company Astral Developments, set up in March, has bought 21ha (52 acres) of land from PowerGen at Hams Hall, near Birmingham, for over £18.2m.
AXA Reim UK will fund the deal which, at £350,000 per acre, is one of the largest in the area this year.
Astral will develop distribution units ranging from 3,251 sq m to 16,722 sq m (35,000 sq ft to 180,000 sq ft) and the first phase will be speculative. The site already has outline consent for B8 development and a detailed application is now being submitted.
Ferris and Saint’s new company, like Prologis, concentrates on developing industrial and distribution schemes. It is searching for development sites in the Midlands and South East.
Simon Spencer of Knight Frank, which is advising Astral, said: “Astral is the new Kingspark. They have gone back to how Kingspark was 10 years ago by aggressively buying sites and forward-funding them. It’s buying up most of what’s on the market in the Midlands. This is their biggest deal.”
The developer has already bought Farrer Estates’ 3.2ha (8 acres) Bromford Lane site in Birmingham, which is being funded by Standard Life, and the 4ha (10 acres) Dolphin Park site in Thurrock, which is being funded by Granger Trust.
Last month, Sainsbury’s decided to buy a 28.3ha (70 acres) distribution site at Hams Hall from Advantage West Midlands for £24m.
DTZ Debenham Tie Leung and Colliers Conrad Ritblat Erdman were joint agents for PowerGen.
EGi News 06/09/00
