Private property company Dunedin Properties is planning to sell one of the biggest industrial portfolios to hit the UK market
Today Property Week learnt that it is to sell its industrial portfolio of more than 10m sq ft, as well as its subsidiary, Industrious Asset Management, which together could fetch £700m.
It has appointed investment bank Morgan Stanley to market the package.
Roughly half of the portfolio, by floor area, was bought 12 months ago for £465m from Brixton.
The decision to sell the company and its principally Midlands-focussed portfolio represents one of the most significant sales in the UK industrial this cycle.
Neither Dunedin nor Morgan Stanley would comment on the strategy behind the sale.
The sale of Industrious will be the latest in a series of corporate industrial deals and large portfolio sales in the UK this year.
It follows the sale of John Cutts’ Parkridge and its subsidiary, Astral Developments, to US giant ProLogis in Feb; the £180m sale of 4m sq ft of industrial property and land in the north by Gladman to US opportunity fund Rockpoint; the £336m sale of Rosemound to Australian company Macquarie Goodman in April; and last week Catalyst Capital emerged as frontrunner to buy Evans Property Groups £400m portfolio.
Dunedin is believed to have already approached a select number of potential buyers for the portfolio.
The portfolio has a estimated rental value of £46m a year based on a fully let basis. It comprises 120 estates nationwide totalling 1,409 units. These units are assigned to 1,060 tenants on 1,268 leases. The units are predominantly for small- to medium-sized businesses and are each between 500 sq ft and 50,000 sq ft.
The portfolio was built up from several purchases, including properties from TowerBrook Capital Partners and Workspace.
Whoever buys the portfolio will also inherit an operational team of about 40 staff working from four offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Manchester.
Once the sale is complete, Dunedin will retain its retail and office holdings.