Gore Street Energy Storage has raised $84m (£62m) from selling US investment tax credits following latest transaction at “Big Rock” in California; Supermarket Income spends £54m on a Kent Tesco store, its first acquisition with money raised from the Blue Owl funds partnership in April; plus bid news from Primary Health Properties and Downing Renewables and updates from Abrdn Property Income, Baker Street Steel and Fair Oaks Income.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) has sold the last of its US investment tax credits at “Big Rock” project in California. Added to the earlier sales of “Dogfish” ITCs in Texas, GSF has generated higher than expected proceeds of around $84m (£62.4m). The company will receive half its money shortly, a quarter in autumn and the rest by the end of this year. The first tranche will be used to reduce Big Rock’s borrowings from $90m to $60m and also fund reserves to cover build-out costs. This will result in lowering GSF’s gearing and associated borrowing costs. The company expects to pay a 3p per share special dividend from the Big Rock transaction later this year.
Supermarket Income REIT (SUPR) has bought a ‘top-performing’ Tesco supermarket in Ashford, Kent, for £54.1m on a 7% net initial yield in the first deployment of capital from the joint venture signed with Blue Owl Capital in April. The store has an unexpired lease term of nine years with annual RPI-linked rent reviews (subject to a 5% cap and a 0% floor). Tesco has operated from the 8.2 acre site for over 30 years and uses the store as an online fulfilment hub with 14 home delivery vans and Click & Collect services. SUPR believes that this is an inflection point in the real estate cycle where supermarket property valuations are at multi-year lows and long lease inflation linked assets can be bought at accretive yields.
Primary Health Properties (PHP) says its agreed offer for Assura (AGR) has received foreign direct investment clearance in Ireland and the transaction does not require any further regulatory approvals.
Abrdn Property Income (API) says a fall in its last remaining asset, the Far Ralia woodland in the Cairngorms, knocked net asset value by 6.4% in the first half of the year, reducing NAV per share to 7.45p down from 7.96p at 31 December. The value of Far Ralia fell from £10m to £8m due to a lower forecast carbon unit price and an increase in the discount valuation rate, which are making the asset difficult to sell. The company disposed of 39 assets to GoldenTree Asset Management last year and says once the final handovers have been made between managing agents it will consider what remaining income payment can be made to shareholders.
Baker Steel Resources Trust (BSRT), a £67m mining fund, says its net asset value advanced 13.2% last month following the 153% jump in AIM-listed Tungsten West (TUN) after its plan to restart mining operations at Hemerdon in Devon, and the revaluation of Polar Acquisition Limited following the sale of its Prognoz silver royalty in Russia. NAV per share rose 12.2p to 104.4p at 30 June, lifting total net assets to £111.2m.
Downing Renewables & Infrastructure Trust (DORE) says FS Wealth Management has sold its 2.64% position with 3.55% of voting rights and therefore the non-binding letter of intent it signed to support the agreed acquisition by the company by its largest shareholder, Bagnall Energy, is no longer valid. This reduces the level of support for the bid to 9.7% of shares and just over 13% of voting shares.
Fair Oaks Income (FAIR), the £226m high-yielding structured debt fund, is to pay $7.5m to realisation shareholders, the seventh payment to this share class, by buying back 41.3% of their shares at their 30 May net asset value of 52.97 cents.
