Tesco Pension Fund is selling the home of life sciences group Abcam at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus to its tenant for around £125 million, or a 4.5% yield, CoStar News understands, in the largest transaction in the South East and East of England in the third quarter.
The Cambridge Biomedical Campus's developers – Liberty Property Trust and Countryside Properties – agreed an 108,000-square-foot prelet with Abcam in 2022 at the same time as securing forward funding from Tesco Pension Fund. The ultimate buyer is understood to be Danaher which recently bought Abcam.
The deal was the first on the 20-acre phase 2 expansion of the campus since planning consent was granted. It saw the company, which makes antibodies, proteins, kits and reagents, secure a 20-year lease for its new global headquarters.
Cambridge Biomedical Campus, two miles south of the city centre, is home to world-class biomedical research, patient care and education on a single site.
The sale is the largest in the third quarter for South East and East of England offices in a strong quarter, reports ACRE Capital Real Estate. South East office investment volumes totalled £616 million across 27 transactions in the third quarter, the highest volume for the last 18 months.
The figures puts the third quarter ahead of the 5-year average of £461 million. ACRE reports that there have now been £1.315 billion of transactions in 2024 and it is tracking another £600 million under offer.
The largest deal of the quarter is Cambridge Biomed Campus, followed by the exchange of Cody Technology Park in Farnborough, which is being sold by Qinetiq for £112 million.
This was followed by the Syngenta plant at Jealott's Hill, sold by M&G to Mitubishi UFJ Financial Group for £70 million and then QVC's headquarters Chiswick, sold by Abrdn for £48.4 million. Shinfield Park in Reading was sold by Global Net Lease for £35 million to be converted into industrial, and Sutton Point was sold by Westfield Investments, for £21.6 million.
Tesco Pension Fund, Schroders Capital, which advises the fund, and Abcam declined to comment.