Lateral is preparing to fire up talks with potential funding partners on raising around £300m in equity, as part of a long-term ambition to create a sizeable life sciences portfolio.
The asset manager and developer is in the early stages of devising a phased strategy for growth, with a view to ultimately creating life sciences “corridors” across the Golden Triangle.
Lateral aims to use the funds for healthcare developments and next-generation life sciences buildings. The company is seeking to expand beyond an R&D offering by adding gene and protein facilities, clean-room space, data centres and last-mile logistics handling consumables.
Rob Beacroft, director and co-founder at Lateral, told EG that its search for partners will mark the first phase of that strategy, adding that the business expects to “roll out further down the line with larger fundraises”.
Fellow director and co-founder Rob Crawley said the business is “open-minded” on whether there would be just one or multiple funding partners.
Beacroft said: “We are fortunate to be working with great partners on our schemes in Cambridge and Whitechapel and there is more in the pipeline we will execute with them.
“Separate to that, our vision is to build a service-led, next-generation life science portfolio focused on the UK’s established and emerging centres of excellence for science, supporting biotech companies’ whole life, from discovery through to commercialisation. While at an early stage, we are starting to explore potential funding partners who share and support our vision.”
Crawley said: “It comes down to our ambitions of wanting to keep the growth trajectory of our business going, and working with those who share the long-term vision for building up a more substantial life sciences portfolio.”
Lateral’s long-term vision is to create “golden highways” connecting “centres of excellence” within the Golden Triangle. Those will be places with “clear corridors” of life sciences activity, including science parks.
Stevenage is among Lateral’s targeted locations, which the company sees as being undervalued by the vast majority of the developers. So far only UBS and Reef have set out plans to create a life sciences cluster in the region.
Beacroft said: “We will be looking at life sciences and the ecosystem more holistically. There is a lot around life science and supporting real estate functions that can make these ecosystems work, and that will be our focus.”
Earlier this year, Lateral partnered with Amazon Property on a circa £250m fund, which focuses on sectors including care homes, logistics, life sciences and offices. The joint venture made its first life sciences purchase in June, with further bids submitted across other sites within the life sciences sector.
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