Boots is secretly marketing a £25m portfolio of six retail parades and 17 high street units.
The move will involve the sale-and-leaseback of 26 of the groups stores. The portfolio consists of prime properties in secondary locations across the country, including retail parades in Darwen, Fort William, Elton, Grangemouth, Tenterton, and Loughton.
Total rental income from the portfolio will be £2.2m pa, reflecting a net initial yield of 8.5%. The parades are let to a variety of tenants, including WH Smith and Argos.
Jones Lang LaSalle and Reed Rose Gregory are advising on the disposal, and have drawn up a shortlist of private investors.
Boots director of property, Richard Bartholomew, said: “We are selling out of our non-core properties through investment sales and outsourcing. Our strategy is to get out of property investment and development to focus our attention on retail activities and provision of services. This is just one aspect of a number of things we will be doing to restructure our portfolio.”
Boots recently merged its property divisions to create a single property and planning team for all its divisions. It still owns around £900m of property, but plans to cut this down to around £700m of group-occupied units over the next couple of years.
EGi News 13/07/01
