Ares Management has bought West Midlands-based industrial developer and investor Revelan Group for £200m.
The deal will give the asset manager a foothold in the industrial sector and enable it to scale quickly.
The new venture will aim to build a multilet platform of regional industrial assets, which will focus on secondary stock of last-mile distribution centres to capitalise on the growing demand for space from e-commerce companies.
Revelan Group director Nicholas Schwartz will continue in his role at the business. Mark Hatcher, principal in the Area Real Estate Group, has been appointed as a director.
Wilson Lamont and Will Tremlow from Ares have been appointed as directors of the new platform.
Paul White, who was previously a director at Revelan, resigned from the business on 6 October 2017.
Before the business makes any acquisitions it will be repositioned by disposing of some of Revelan’s non-core assets.
This will be a continuation of a process which Revelan has been working on for the past year. According to its latest filings at Companies House, in the financial year ended 31 March 2017 Revelan Group has been disposing of non-income-producing assets and improving the rental stream of its investment portfolio, resulting in an uplift in the value of the portfolio of 12% on a like-for-like basis from £127m to £142m. The company posted a profit £46m for the period.
At the beginning of 2017 the business was restructured so that it could resolve some of its debts to Irish bad bank Nama.
The restructuring resulted in Revelan Group Ltd becoming the group’s principal investment company – allowing a new five-year £113m debt facility to repay Nama.
Prime assets in Revelan’s portfolio include Victoria Park in Derbyshire, a 13-acre business park with units ranging between 29,340 sq ft and 59,250 sq ft.
The new venture is the latest in a string of strategic partnerships looking to capitalise on the growth in demand for space in the UK’s industrial sector.
Last week, Valor Real Estate Partners launched a long-term investment fund, Valor Industrial Partners 1, with AIG providing initial funding to build a €300m (£266m) portfolio.
Last month, Panattoni Europe, one of Europe’s largest logistics companies, took over West Midlands-based industrial developer First Industrial in order to enter the UK market.
DTRE acted for Ares.
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