Tritax EuroBox has entered into an agreement to acquire land and provide forward funding for the development of a new highly specified and sustainable logistics warehouse facility in Settimo Torinese near Turin, Northern Italy for a total consideration of €24.4m. The property will be developed by LCP Milan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of LCP HoldCo. The construction of the facility is expected to complete in 2022.
The high quality and sustainable cross-docked logistics warehouse facility will comprise a gross leasable area of approximately 28,249m² and will be arranged as two equal-sized units in one single building, capable of being leased either as a single building or two separate buildings. The facility is expected to achieve a BREEAM Very Good rating and to benefit from roof-mounted photovoltaic panels.
The facility will be adjacent to the A4 ‘Turin-Trieste’ motorway, east of Turin, Italy’s fourth-largest city. The Italian logistics market is currently characterised by record levels of occupational take-up, particularly in the northern part of the country, as well as vacancy rates at a low level of around 2%.
Nick Preston, Fund Manager of Tritax EuroBox, commented: “Continuing the deployment of proceeds of our €230m equity raise in March this year and of our subsequent €500m green bond issuance in June 2021, we are delighted to enter into conditional contracts to acquire our second asset in Italy which complements our existing asset near Rome and further reinforces the Company’s ESG credentials. This development funding provides us with the opportunity to add further value to the asset in line with our evolved investment strategy. We are pleased to be working with our partners, LCP, who have deep knowledge of the Italian logistics market and an extensive development pipeline that provides us access to well-located, high-quality logistics assets with strong sustainability characteristics at attractive yields on cost. Italy, like other markets, is seeing growing online retailing and supply chain optimisation, leading to increased demand for the best-located logistics properties. The pandemic has accelerated these trends and further enhanced the prospects for the sector. We remain confident that these long-term positive structural tailwinds, combined with our high-quality portfolio and our ability to unlock value from it, will help ensure that we will continue to deliver shareholder value.”
