Flexible office group Workspace has wrapped up its £272m acquisition of office investment firm McKay Securities.
The deal was struck back in March, and looked for a time as if it might draw out a counter offer from Canada’s Slate Asset Management. Slate walked away from the table last month, leaving the path clear for Workspace to complete its recommended deal today.
Workspace chief executive Graham Clemett said: “This is an exciting milestone for Workspace and an acceleration of our existing growth plans. The acquisition of McKay will enable us to capture more of the strong demand we are seeing from SMEs for high-quality flexible office space by adding to our portfolio a further seven London office buildings in great locations for our customers and a footprint in the South East, where we see a good opportunity to test the broader demand for our flexible offer.”
Workspace’s shares ended the day at 633.5p, down 1.4% over the session.
SEGRO was among the day’s sharpest real estate fallers, falling a further 6.6% to 1,109p, an 11-month low. Industrial and logistics-focused REITs have been battered on the public markets since Amazon said last week that it will scale back its rapid take-up of real estate. Companies have argued that the occupier base is varied enough to sustain Amazon’s dialling back of demand but shares have continued to fall – Tritax Big Box REIT was down by 5.3% today and Urban Logistics REIT by 3.7%.
In the FTSE 250, Capital & Counties posted the day’s sixth-biggest rise across any industry, closing at 165.4p, up by 2.7%. The company was singled out by analysts at Peel Hunt this week as “the most attractive way to play the West End recovery” as shoppers and office workers return to the area.
The FTSE 100 ended the day at 7,387, down by 1.5%. The FTSE 250 stood at 19,819, down by 1.35%.
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