Henley has completed the leasehold sale of a 99,000 sq ft office site at Cobalt Business Park, Newcastle, one of the UK’s premier out of town office locations.
The private equity real estate firm agreed a sale for £16.75 million, a yield of 7.2 per cent, representing a deal IRR of around 20 per cent. The site, which is currently let in its entirety to leading consumer product company, Proctor & Gamble, has been sold to a high net worth individual, with an unexpired leasehold term of around 106 years.
Cobalt Business Park is located within close proximity to the A1 dual carriageway and Newcastle town centre, and boasts an impressive calibre of tenants including Accenture, Hewlett Packard and Santander. Following acquisition of the property in 2012, Henley carried out a proactive asset management strategy, restructuring a short term lease to over a 12 year term expiring in 2027.
Commenting on the sale, Ian Rickwood, Chief Executive Officer of Henley, said: “We are extremely pleased with the asset management and subsequent disposal of this investment delivering excellent returns for our investors. A 20 per cent IRR is a superb result and strongly validates our earlier acquisition and general strategy. We continue to invest significantly in all value opportunities and remain confident that Henley secures exceptional deals for its investors. Our commercial acquisition strategy now turns more to Europe.”
Established in 2006, Henley is a leading UK private equity real estate investor focusing on development, investment and asset management in the commercial, residential, healthcare and debt real estate market. Since its inception Henley has doubled in size every year and is expected to do the same again in 2015. The company currently has around £500 million assets under management (as of May 2014). Since its inception Henley has created over 40 SPV Funds, exiting 14 with an average performance of 55.1 per cent deal IRR.
Henley were advised by Cushman & Wakefield and the purchaser by Matthew & Goodman.