Gazeley today announced the sale of its 669,000 ft² (approx. 62,152 m²) ecommerce distribution center currently under construction for leading UK retailer John Lewis at its flagship UK development site Magna Park Milton Keynes in the UK to Aviva Investors for a fee of £74.20 million (approx. €88.62 million)
The property will be forward funded by Aviva Investors and is scheduled for completion in February 2014. The building when complete will be physically linked to John Lewis’ existing 650,000 ft² (approx. 60,386 m²) distribution facility located on the park also developed by Gazeley in 2007.
Aviva Investor's Lime Property Fund has paid £74.20 million, a yield of 4.90% for the asset, which is to be let to John Lewis for 30 years with inflation linked rent reviews each year.
Nigel Godfrey, Senior Vice President Gazeley also commented: “We took the decision to sell this prime asset in light of the recent surge in investor demand and received a number of very strong offers. We are very pleased to have completed this deal with the Aviva team in just 10 days which was in line with our expectations"
Renos Booth, Fund Manager at Aviva Investors said: “This acquisition comes on the back of the Lime Property Fund reaching assets under management of £1 billion and continues our strategy of acquiring long term, inflation-linked income from undoubted covenants. We are also pleased to have been able to build upon Lime’s track record of working with developers to complete this mutually beneficial transaction in such a short time frame”
Colliers International acted for Aviva Investors with Jones Lang LaSalle and Savills acting for Gazeley.'
Source: Gazeley
