Pears Group has been selected as the frontrunner to buy the 109-asset Marble portfolio for around £110m.
The purchase price reflects a yield of circa 10.6% on the multi-let mostly industrial package.
Goldman Sachs is the other potential contender, but is understood to have lodged a smaller bid than Pears.
Although Pears Group has been selected as the preferred bidder, ongoing discussions over who will asset manage the portfolio mean the group has not placed the portfolio under offer.
M7 Real Estate and VBR Investments appointed KPMG to sell the portfolio in 2014. Pears Group was unrepresented in the deal.
The 4.1m sq ft portfolio comprises 90 industrial assets, 10 retail properties and nine offices let to 700 tenants. It is 79% occupied.
The purchase represents the most significant step yet into the industrial market for Pears Group, which has been attempting to increase its exposure to the sector since 2013.
It follows the William Pears Group’s £103m purchase of the debt secured against the Chrome portfolio in 2012, and its purchase, for £100m, of the debt secured against a residential portfolio in 2011, both from Nama.
In 2014 the group struck a £135m deal to refinance Manchester-based developer Urban Splash and provided a £75m facility for London developer Mount Anvil. Both companies are geared towards residential.
The firm also sold out of its share of the £100m Project Earth portfolio of bingo halls in August, as revealed by Estates Gazette.
Pears Group and KPMG declined to comment.
