Blackstone and M7 Real Estate have agreed a deal to buy the remaining assets in Helical’s industrial portfolio for £150m – a 6.5% yield.
The duo bid over the asking price of £132m and fended off fierce competition from underbidders that included Westbrook, Canmoor and Tristan, Ares and Oxenwood with KKR.
Helical’s decision to sell forms part of its strategy to focus on its London holdings and development opportunities and this deal marks its exit from the sector.
The 20-asset portfolio totals around 2.2m sq ft and includes last-mile properties in Yate, Bristol, Peterborough, Buzzard, Chester and Northampton.
It is fully let, generates an annual rental income of around £10m, and has an average combined unexpired lease term of six-and-a-half years. Tenants include Sainsbury’s and Royal Mail.
This is the latest in a string of industrial acquisitions for the duo which last March bought almost the entirety of Hansteen’s European portfolio for €1.3bn (£1.1bn).
Blackstone and M7 started buying together at the start of last year when they acquired a €112.5m (£98m) portfolio of 26 light industrial assets in France, mostly around Paris, from M7’s MStar joint venture with Starwood Capital. M7 continues to asset manage the portfolio. They have now accumulated a portfolio of over £2.5bn.
Earlier this month they acquired InfraRed Capital Partners’ UK light industrial portfolio for £320m – a 6.3% yield. The deal involved 4.5m sq ft of industrial space across 40 properties, most of which are in the North West and the Midlands.
Tudor Toone and Lambert Smith Hampton is acting for Helical; DTRE is representing Blackstone and M7.
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