Tritax EuroBox has agreed the sale of a 1m sq ft industrial unit in Lodz, Poland, to clients of Savills Investment Management for €65.5m (£57m) – a 4.95% yield.
The asset was originally bought by Tritax in April 2019 and included a forward funding prelet development opportunity to expand the existing site by 560,000 sq ft, which was completed in May 2019.
Tritax said it had decided to sell the building, which is let for a further 6.7 years to French DIY retailer Castorama, as it had no further asset management opportunities available. Cash realised from the sale will be reinvested in the firm’s development pipeline.
Savills IM has bought the building on behalf of the Vestas European Strategic Allocation Logistics Fund. The fund is among the first ‘blind’ funds raised solely from Korean institutional investors to invest in European real estate, and targets core/core-plus logistics assets across all key European markets. It was seeded with a new 1.2m sq ft unit leased to DSV in Tholen, the Netherlands, acquired late last year.
Nick Preston, Tritax EuroBox fund manager, said: “The positive structural trends which underpin the significant demand for logistics space are expected to continue to strengthen further over the long term. This profitable sale of one of our earlier asset purchases, 15% ahead of the latest book value, has delivered strong returns to our investors and is in line with our refined strategy of taking full advantage of these trends and crystallising profit, allowing us to redeploy capital into higher returning investment opportunities.
“These attractive value-add opportunities include asset management initiatives within our existing high-quality portfolio and also the funding of new assets from the attractive pipeline we have access to through our development partners. This development pipeline enables us to acquire new high-quality logistics assets in a more cost-effective manner than competing in the open market, delivering enhanced value to our shareholders.”
JLL advised Savills IM on the acquisition.
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