Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has acquired Cambridge Research Park from Rockspring Property Investment Managers for £78m (€88.4m).
Rockspring said it sold the 112-acre site on behalf of UK Value 2 to The Royal London Mutual Insurance Society, which is managed by RLAM.
The purchase by RLAM reflects its strategy of focussing on larger assets in core locations where significant growth is forecast.
RLAM is already heavily invested in Cambridge through its ownership at Vision Park and has identified this transaction as an opportunity to increase its exposure to one of the UK’s most buoyant regional economies.
Rockspring originally acquired the site, in partnership with asset manager XLB Property, in 2014 for £21m, with 80,000sqft of existing net lettable space.
Since then, Rockspring and XLB have undertaken a significant construction and asset management programme across the site, including the development of an additional 80,000sqft of office/laboratory/mid tech space across three buildings, together with 76,000sqft of industrial space across a nine-unit scheme called Enterprise 5000, which completed in May 2018.
Two of the industrial units are already under offer, Rockspring said.
Kim Sardar, a director at Rockspring, said: “This has been a tremendously exciting project for us and a huge amount of work has gone into ensuring that this site successfully delivers on its significant potential.
”Having received an approach from Royal London, with the majority of the construction completed and a tangible improvement in the Park’s income profile having been achieved, we believe that now is the right time to crystallise the value we have created on behalf of our investors, and to hand over to an institutional buyer to take it forward over the longer term.”
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