Real estate investor and fund manager, Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell) and Catella APAM (APAM), the UK real estate asset manager, have jointly sold Wexham Springs business park for £28.1 million, reflecting a 2.89% yield.
Wexham Springs is a mid-1990s business park located three miles north of Slough, comprising 101,000 sq ft across four office buildings on a 39-acre green belt estate. Three buildings were acquired by Cromwell in 2013 and the fourth building was acquired by clients of APAM as part of the £250 million Aviva portfolio in 2014.
Prior to the sale, Cromwell led a pre-application consultation with Buckinghamshire Council and secured a 100 MW power supply from the National Grid substation at Iver Heath.
Commenting on the sale, Matthew Bird, Head of UK at Cromwell Property Group, said: “We utilised our in-house expertise and asset management capabilities to highlight the investment and location attributes, secure the essential power requirements and local authority support which meant the business park could be marketed as a future data centre development opportunity.”
“This was extremely beneficial to the sale process but wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration of APAM and their investors, who owned the fourth building on the site,” he added.
Will Grenfell, Senior Asset Manager at APAM, said: “Our collaborative active asset management approach has made the future redevelopment opportunity possible, and offer the business park a new lease of life whilst securing a strong outcome for our investors. It was a pleasure to work with Cromwell on this project.”
Knight Frank acted on behalf of Cromwell and APAM for the transaction.
As seen in Property Week & Insider Media:
Property Week – https://www.propertyweek.com/news/cromwell-and-apam-dispose-of-slough-business-park-for-281m/5116525.article
Insider Media – https://www.insidermedia.com/news/south-east/slough-business-park-changes-hands