Oxenwood Real Estate, the property company established by former London & Stamford duo Jeremy Bishop and Stewart Little, has signed a joint venture with a Bermuda-based reinsurance investment company to invest in UK property.
The Oxenwood and Catalina Holdings joint venture – called Oxenwood Catalina Limited – intends to building a portfolio of income-producing assets as well as those with asset management potential.
Together with debt financing, the joint venture will have firepower in excess of £100m.
Oxenwood Catalina has already made its first purchases – the UK HQ and distribution centre of Maplin Electronics for £15.1m from Merseyside Pension Fund.
The 200,000 sq ft property is located near Rotherham and is leased to Maplin for a further 18.3 years. The passing rent is just over £1m pa, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.3%.
The property was purchased out of the cash resources of the joint venture and is expected to be refinanced with a senior loan facility in due course.
Oxenwood Real Estate LLP will be the property adviser to the joint venture.
CBRE represented Oxenwood Catalina Limited and CPP represented Merseyside Pension Fund.
Stewart Little, co-founding partner, Oxenwood, said: “The acquisition of Maplin’s headquarters and distribution centre is the first from a pipeline of transactions across the UK which we are considering for the joint venture and represents an excellent seed asset. Despite increasing equity flows into the market, we are encouraged by the range of opportunities we are seeing and we very much look forward to progressing our investment programme.”
Chris Fagan, chairman and chief executive of Catalina, added: “Catalina is attracted to the long-term stable cash flows and growth potential from UK commercial real estate. Jeremy and Stewart have a great track record of building portfolios of distribution warehouses, among others, and Oxenwood’s co-investment with Catalina ensures an effective alignment of interest from an experienced UK property partner.”
