Assura Group has announced that it is buying 28 medical centres at a total cost of £107m – paid as £10m in cash, the assumption of £77.7m of debt and by the issuance of 44.3m new shares in Assura to the vendors, a company controlled by Ray Seymour and Alistair Blacklaws, founders of MP Realty Holdings. The new shares are subject to a 12 month orderly market agreement (which will limit how and when the new shares may be sold).
The deal takes Assura Group’s loan to value ratio up to 65% (from 62%).
The rental income from the new properties is expected to be £6.2m (subject to certain outstanding rent reviews being agreed). The yield on the gross consideration is about 5.8%. Assura think there is scope to derive some incremental rental income from the portfolio.
Graham Roberts, Chief Executive of Assura Group (pictured) said: “The acquired portfolio has been carefully constructed and managed over many years and represents a very good fit with our existing strong and growing portfolio. Ray and Alistair’s approach to quality of design and construction and ongoing support for their GP occupiers mirrors our own philosophy and we look forward to providing continued support to their occupiers in the future. We are pleased to have secured this high quality portfolio in such an attractive market sector. The transaction represents further progress in Assura’s strategy of building scale, following on from our purchase of 32 medical centres from Trinity in September last year. Both acquisitions benefit from our internally managed model where significant growth in our portfolio requires only marginal increases in overheads.”