The Israeli property company, Alony Hetz, is reportedly trying to sell its entire UK portfolio for over £215m.
The portfolio was mostly built up through a series of acquisitions from British Land. It comprises 836,000 sq ft of floorspace throughout eight properties, both retail and offices. The majority of the office properties are single let to tenants, on leases with an average of 17 years unexpired. The £215m price tag would reflect a yield of 7.25%.
Included in the portfolio are the 225,000 sq ft Somerfield House in Bristol, the former headquarters of the supermarket group; an 80,000 sq ft Customs & Excise office next to Spinningfields in Manchester; and the 50,000 sq ft Dawson House in Jewry Street, London EC3.
Jones Lang La Salle’s Roualeyn Cumming-Bruce, who has been appointed to handle the sale, commented: “The sale price will end up comfortably in the 6% range because of the shortage of institutional stock and the weight of money in the market. There is £8bn-£9bn of institutional money alone that needs to be spent before Christmas.”
An Israeli source added: “There are complicated tax reasons for the sale and Alony Hetz does see this as a good time to be selling. But I don’t imagine this to be a straight profit-taking situation and I hear of a couple of large acquisitions in the pipeline.”
www.efreeman.co.uk
Source: Freeman News/ Estates Gazette