London Portfolio From Wereldhave Acquired

RNS Number : 5603X

British Land Co PLC

11 February 2013

 



British Land Acquires London Portfolio from Wereldhave for £183.8 million

British Land has acquired a portfolio of properties in London from Wereldhave for £183.8 million. The most significant asset in the portfolio is Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre which has been purchased for £142.5 million by way of share acquisition, representing a net initial yield of 6.9%. The portfolio also includes five retail and office properties in Baker Street, Chiswick High Road, Putney High Street Fulham Road and Great Portland Street which were purchased for £41.3 million, a net initial yield of 5.0% rising to 6.1% when fully let.

Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre has 300,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space (including a Virgin Active Gym), 800 car parking spaces and a multi-let office. The 7.5 acre freehold shopping centre, which has recently been refurbished and has over 60 retail units, is anchored by Primark, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, River Island and H&M with other occupiers including Boots, Jack & Jones and Wagamama. 

Ealing Broadway is an attractive convenient shopping destination in West London, well located in the centre of Ealing and close to the train and tube station. It dominates the retail offer in the town centre and has an annual footfall of around 15 million. It has an affluent catchment of 1.6 million people, with over a third in the key retail spending group of 25-44 year olds. Looking forward, the centre is expected to benefit from significant levels of development in Ealing, including a new leisure scheme, the Dickens Yard residential quarter and Crossrail. Crossrail, which completes in 2018, will lead to shorter journey times from Heathrow (13 minutes), Liverpool Street (19 minutes) and Canary Wharf (26 minutes).

Charles Maudsley, Head of Retail, said: "We are delighted to have bought Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre. It is a highly attractive retail destination which meets the needs of today's consumers for convenient, well-located shopping. We believe there are significant opportunities to grow and develop the shopping centre as a retail destination both as we further improve the retail mix and increase the leisure offer and as the area benefits from residential development and the completion of Crossrail."

Jackson Criss and Strutt & Parker acted for British Land.

Enquiries:

British Land

Investor Relations

Sally Jones, British Land                                    020 7467 2942

Media

Pip Wood, British Land                                       020 7467 2838

Jackie Whitaker, British Land                              020 7467 3449

Emma Hammond, FTI Consulting                        020 7269 9347

Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group                        020 7251 3801  

Notes to Editors

About British Land                                                                                             

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £16.3 billion (British Land share £10.4 billion), as valued at 30 September 2012. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and receive over 300 million visits each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our UK occupancy rate of 97.7% and average lease length to first break of 11 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 60% of our portfolio with around 28 million sq ft of retail space across 82 retail parks, 92 superstores, 13 shopping centres and 9 department stores. The retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats and our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers. 80% of our retail parks have open A1 consent.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 35% of the portfolio (which will rise to an estimated 40% on completion of current developments). Our 7 million sq ft of high quality offices includes Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. Over the last 2 years, we have committed £1.2 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.3 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Managing our environmental, economic and social impacts is central to the way we do business and deliver value for our shareholders. We assess the issues that matter most to us and our stakeholders on an on-going basis and, where appropriate, adjust our strategic focus to reflect this. We focus on managing our buildings efficiently, supporting communities, developing sustainable buildings and engaging our staff. For each of these priorities we are targeting our efforts and resources at initiatives where we can achieve the biggest impacts.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

 

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