In QuotedData’s morning briefing 10 September 2020:
- Capital & Counties has sold a block of property, that it has dubbed “the Wellington block”, for £76.5m. The block comprises 25-31 Wellington Street, 23 Wellington Street, 15 Exeter Street, 12 & 14 Burleigh Street and Burleigh House, currently providing approximately 66,000 square feet of lettable space. The buyer is The Portfolio Club, a joint venture between APG and London Central Portfolio (“LCP”) that was launched last year to create a new lifestyle hospitality brand in prime central London locations. The Wellington block is a freehold island site located on the south east corner of Covent Garden comprising six separate properties and has recently received planning consent to develop a 146-room hotel with retail and restaurant space, taking lettable space to 100,000 sq ft. Vacant possession of the property has been secured over the majority of the site and the ERV of the properties as at 30 June 2020 was £4.2m.
- BioPharma Credit notes that Lexicon Pharmaceuticals has repaid in full its $150m secured term loan, of which the company owned $124.5m. The company received $132.3m yesterday from Lexicon, comprised of $124.5m in principal, $2.2m in accrued interest and $5.6m in make-whole amount and prepayment fees. This investment generated an IRR of 12.1%.
- Empiric Student Property says that Duncan Garrood will be joining the company as chief executive officer on 28 September 2020. Additionally, William Atkinson, who was appointed in July 2020, will also join Empiric on the same day as property director and a member of the senior leadership team. William has 16 years’ experience in investment and development across a variety of operational assets, in particular multi-family real estate.
- UK Commercial Property REIT has exchanged contracts for the sale of Great Lodge Retail Park in Tunbridge Wells, to M7 Real Estate for £46.25m less rent guarantee deductions. The sale price (after deductions) was at the June valuation. The portfolio now has only 16.3% in retail assets with no shopping centre exposure.
- In its interim results, International Public Partnerships (INPP) warns that, in addition to the problems with the Tideway tunnel (that we flagged recently), INPP has also seen a dramatic reduction is passenger numbers on its Diabolo rail link in Belgium. It says “In the event of prolonged under-performance without remedial action, the company is unlikely to receive distributions from this investment for some time and a technical default may be triggered under the terms of the debt secured on that investment.” … “if required the project benefits from a contractual mechanism which permits an adjustment to the passenger fee in the event that passenger numbers and returns fall below a certain threshold” … “the company maintains a positive view on the quality of this investment and remains reassured by the contractual protections and the length of the contract term, which runs until 2047.” The hit to NAV from these investments is fairly small – 149.2p at the end of June versus 150.6p at the end of December.
We also have a big deal from Hipgnosis, an acquisition for SDCL Energy Efficiency a new CEO for British Land and results from Secure Income REIT.