Savills Investment Management, the international real estate investment manager, has announced that its UK Value Boxes fund has deployed £75 million with the closing of its first four assets across the UK since launch in October 2021. The four retail park assets, which include two in England, one in Scotland and one in Wales, were acquired for a combined yield of almost 7.5%.
Savills IM’s UK retail park strategy was launched in October 2021 with the aim of capitalising on the strong income-producing characteristics of the UK retail parks sector, with a focus on parks let to grocery, discount and DIY retailers let off low rents.
The average passing rent on the four assets is £13.50 per sq. ft and tenants include M&S, Home Bargains, Aldi, B&M, B&Q, Pets at Home, and Iceland. The average unexpired lease term is approximately 7 years.
The two assets in England are located in Stafford and Catterick. Hough Retail Park is located less than a mile from Stafford town centre and is the primary bulky goods retail warehousing park in the area. Totalling 101,799 sq. ft and providing 415 customer car parking spaces, the park’s tenants include high quality names such as B&Q, Argos, Home Bargains and Starbucks.
The second asset is Princes Gate in Catterick Garrison, which is the dominant retail & leisure provision in the area. It lies opposite a Tesco Extra store and tenants include Iceland, Poundland, Pets at Home, Sports Direct, Next and Boots.
The Fund also acquired Avenue Retail Park in Cardiff, which is anchored by an M&S Foodhall, B&M and Home Bargains, and a retail park in Aberdeen, let to Aldi, Matalan, B&M and Argos, which benefits from lying adjacent to a large Asda supermarket.
Harry de Ferry Foster, Head of UK, Fund Director, Savills IM, says: “We are delighted to have successfully deployed this amount of capital in such a short time into parks precisely fitting the strategy, especially given the competitive nature of the buyers’ market. These acquisitions will provide a strong yield profile to our investors and exposure to a variety of household names as tenants off very low rents.
The UK retail parks sector continues to demonstrate resilience to e-commerce trends given the high proportion of daily necessity and value-oriented items, and we look forward to making further purchases in the future to ensure the Fund is fully invested.”