LGIM Real Assets (Legal & General) has announced that it has acquired Broadway Plaza in Birmingham, on behalf of its Leisure Fund (the “Fund”), from Aviva Investors, for £46.95 million, growing the Fund to over £600 million.
The 280,000 sq ft leisure development is anchored by a brand-new Odeon Luxe Cinema along with a Hollywood Bowl, Travelodge, Nuffield Health, Rock Up and an independent casino. The scheme is also soon to open an indoor adventure golf offer to add another large footfall generator. The scheme generates a total net income of approximately £3.5m per year.
Odeon Cinemas and Hollywood Bowl, have both recently committed to new 15 and 25 year leases respectively giving a WAULT on the asset of 14 years to expiry with over 80% of the income geared to indexation or fixed growth. The car park has also recently been updated at a cost of £9 million.
This acquisition follows the leisure fundings recently exchanged by the Fund in Stafford (Waterfront Leisure) and York (Vangarde Leisure Park) to be anchored by Odeon and Cineworld respectively and completed in early 2019.
Formed in 2002, the Leisure Fund Limited Partnership has over £600m of assets under management, comprising 18 prime leisure assets occupying dominant positions across the UK and a major development scheme in York. The fund offers an attractive income profile, with a weighted average unexpired lease term of close to 15 years that is backed by strong covenants and with over 50% of the income benefiting from being inflationary linked or incorporating fixed uplifts as well as an extremely low void rate. In 2017 the Fund delivered a strong total return of 12.9% to its institutional investors, which compared favourably to the MSCI All Leisure Benchmark which generated 10.2%. The Fund is managed by Andrew Ferguson (Senior Fund Manager) and Louis Storrar (Senior Asset Manager).
Legal & General’s Leisure Fund was advised by KLM Retail, while Aviva Investors was advised by Knight Frank.
Andrew Ferguson, Senior Fund Manager of Legal & General, said: “This is a great addition to the Fund, presenting an opportunity to improve a dominant edge of city leisure scheme with strong anchor tenants.
“The leisure sector continues to grow with more innovative concepts emerging. Our dedicated Leisure Fund has grown to over £600m following this acquisition and is continuing to grow with exciting new developments in the pipeline. This scheme presents an opportunity for us as specialist leisure owners to continue to evolve the leisure offering in order to achieve the best results for our investors.”
Mark Smith of KLM Retail comments: “The scheme has seen significant improvements in the past 18 months and with the opening of the Odeon Luxe and new Hollywood Bowl, the scheme is the dominant leisure offer in Birmingham city centre with further potential to move forward.”