SEGRO has exchanged contracts with a joint venture between Oaktree Capital Management and Patrizia AG to sell IQ Winnersh, near Reading for £245m.
The sale of the 1.3m sq ft business park is £20m above the asking price and represents a net initial yield of 5.8%.
The net sale proceeds, after deducting the top-ups, are approximately 12% above the historic December 2012 book value, adjusted for capital expenditure since that date.
Following a 37,000 sq ft letting at the newly refurbished E2 office building, announced in April, IQ Winnersh has a vacancy rate of 7.5% and a weighted average unexpired lease term to break of 5.5 years. The sale includes 10 acres of adjacent development land.
Including this transaction, which is expected to complete at the end of July, SEGRO will have completed or announced disposals of £437m since the start of the year. Proceeds from the sale will initially be applied to reduce net debt.
Chief investment officer Phil Redding said: “We are very pleased to have been able to secure the sale of IQ Winnersh on these terms, achieved through a competitive tender process and reflecting the attributes of the park.
“The sale is very much in line with our ongoing focus on recycling capital out of assets at the appropriate time in the cycle in order to crystallise gains from higher value uses and redeploy funds into other profitable growth opportunities in our core markets.”
Meanwhile, SEGRO has sold the 3.3m sq ft Neckermann site in Frankfurt for £39.7m to a consortium of private investors.
The site had been occupied by mail order company Neckermann, but the company filed for insolvency in July 2012 and the site became fully vacant in January 2013.
On IQ Winnersh, Jones Lang LaSalle advised SEGRO; Strutt & Parker acted for Oaktree and Patrizia.
nick.whitten@estatesgazette.com
