Global property investor Hines, on behalf of its Hines European Real Estate Partners III fund, is closing in on two separate United Kingdom industrial investment acquisitions for a total in excess of £110 million, CoStar News can reveal.
The Houston-based firm is in talks to buy Project Iona, a portfolio of industrial assets being sold by Legal & General Investment Management's Industrial Property Investment Fund for around £80 million.
JLL is advising on the sale of the assets including Fareham's Matrix Park, the Vale Industrial Estate in Aylesbury, Easter Park in Aldermaston, Broadstone Way Trade Centre in Poole, Quarry Industrial Estate in Chichester and the Trade Park in Evesham.
The Industrial Property Investment Fund is a United Kingdom limited partnership and was one of the first funds of its type launched in 1997. The fund, which has been focused on building its trade counter portfolio, is managed by the real assets division of Legal & General Investment Management, and is asset managed by JLL.
Separately Hines has completed the acquisition of Project Clover, a portfolio of three light industrial multi-let estates located in Guildford, Redhill and Wokingham in the South East of England.
The sites have been bought from Columbia Threadneedle for around £34 million and comprise Ashville Park in Wokingham, Henley Business Park in Guildford and the IO Centre in Redhill.
The portfolio comprises 18 units let to 17 tenants and a weighted average unexpired term certain of 5.6 years. The estates are of post-2000 construction with total floor area of approximately 186,950 square feet and an average unit size of 10,380 square feet.
ACRE Capital Real Estate acted for Hines on Project Clover while Columbia Threadneedle was advised by Knight Frank.
Hines has continued to be an active investor in United Kingdom and European industrial and logistics in recent years. In September of last year it bought a 378,942-square-foot industrial hub in Warrington in the north west, Warrington 379, from M&G Real Estate for £22.5 million, and a portfolio of four multi-let industrial estates in the West Midlands on behalf of its Hines European Value Fund 2 from London Metric.
In 2022, it completed €797 million of logistics deals across the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and the UK as it increased its logistics assets under management in Europe to €3 billion. Hines has been buying for its funds Hines European Core Fund and Hines European Property Partners.
According to LSH, industrial volume of £1.6 billion was 21% up on the final quarter of 2023 in the first quarter of this year, but still 32% below the five-year average. The sector’s most noteworthy deal saw Ares Management buy a 1.2-million-square-foot portfolio from Royal London Asset Management for £212 million. Large-scale industrial transactions were otherwise thin on the ground, with only one other deal in excess of £100 million.