Bruntwood and L&G create £360m science and tech property venture

Property firm Bruntwood and Legal & General Capital have set up a £360m (€408.4m) UK science and technology property partnership.

The duo said they have established the 50:50 partnership and will invest capital, property and intellectual assets into a new company known as Bruntwood SciTech.

The plan is to grow Bruntwood SciTech’s current assets of 1.3m square feet to over 6.2m square feet over the next ten years, increasing the value of the portfolio to £1.8bn.

Bruntwood SciTech’s portfolio is centred around assets and development projects in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, and includes the life science campus in Cheshire, Alderley Park. Liverpool also features strongly in its forward plans.

Bruntwood SciTech will initially focus on developing out its existing portfolio of assets as well as expanding within the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine regions.

In the medium and longer term, the business will explore opportunities for investment in other UK regional cities.

The business will be chaired by Bruntwood’s chief executive Chris Oglesby and led by current Bruntwood chief commercial officer Phil Kemp as CEO.

The board also features Legal & General Capital’s managing director of urban regeneration and clean energy, John Cummins, and its director of regeneration, Rachel Dickie.

Oglesby said: “Bruntwood SciTech is aimed squarely at the many opportunities offered by the science and technology sector and with the backing of Legal & General we can greatly accelerate the scale and pace of what we can achieve.

“We have ambitious growth plans and see this activity as enabling the creation of around 20,000 new jobs over the next 10 years.”

Nigel Wilson, the chief executive of Legal & General, said: “Although the UK is a great place to do business, years of chronic underinvestment have led to poor productivity, inadequate real wage growth and muted economic growth.

“Science and technology will be key to revitalising the UK economy and driving job creation. We need to keep investing to support the development of our UK regional cities.”