Birmingham-based Nurton Developments has disposed of two assets from its industrial portfolio in the West Midlands reaching above the asking price, totaling £4 million.
The strength of the region’s industrial market meant demand was high for both the Harcourt Trading Estate in Telford, and a single unit on the Chase Park Industrial Estate, with both going to best bids, according to Nurton director, Rupert Young.
“We’d seen interest from occupiers increase and thus rents rise in both locations, and thought the time was right to test interest. When we saw the bids coming in, we were confident we’d made the correct decision.”
Both disposals were carried out by Andy Price, a director and co-founder of Franck-Steier Price Ltd, a Birmingham-based investment and consultancy practice, specialising in the industrial market.
“The two assets were similar in that they are refurbished industrial space, but the buyers couldn’t have been more different,” he said.,
“The Harcourt Trading Estate went to the FT-SE 250 company Hansteen, and the Chase Park unit was acquired on behalf of a private individual based in the Isle of Man.”
Hansteen is a real estate investment trust with more than £1.6 billion of assets under management across the UK, France, Benelux and Germany, and with a UK portfolio of almost 16m sq ft across 300 properties.
The Chase Park unit is just under 37,000 sq ft on a two-acre site, let to a local family-owned business, Peppermill Interiors, which has been trading for more than 20 years supplying furniture to bars, restaurants and other trade outlets in the leisure sector.
Harcourt is a multi-let industrial estate, in Telford’s Halesfield 13 business district, of ten units with a combined 67,300 sq ft of space and is fully let to seven tenants.
“Nurton understands the industrial sector, knows how to asset manage to improve the product and thus attract occupiers. In both locations, the market has been moving upward because of local influences,” said Price.
“There’s very little supply of industrial units in the Burntwood area, which has pushed up rents for refurbished second-hand space, and that location is also ideal for Peppermill.
“Telford is an established location for advanced manufacturing and automotive-related businesses, and the construction of JLR’s 750,000 sq ft engine plant at the i54 on the outskirts of Wolverhampton has pushed up rents in the region’s industrial markets, as the vacancy rates were already low.”
Young, Nurton’s development director said they intended to reinvest the money raised in new projects including strategic land acquisitions.
“We are a trading organsiation rather than a long-term investor. We will hold property if the market dictates this or until our business plans have been put into practice but equally, you need the flexibility to move when the time is right. The industrial market is extremely strong in the West Midlands at present and we felt the time was right to sell in both cases.”