Industrial property investor Hansteen is acquiring a UK portfolio of mixed-use properties for £53.7m (€60.2m).

Hansteen said it has agreed to buy the portfolio of 34 properties from listed peer St Modwen Properties. The assets are located throughout the UK with a focus on the North West and the West Midlands.

Hansteen said it will fund the deal with current cash resources and a drawdown under the revolving credit facility from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The portfolio provides 1.4m square foot of accommodation, let to more than 200 tenants producing a current rent of £5.25m annum. Around 85,000sqft is vacant.

Morgan Jones and Ian Watson, joint chief executives of Hansteen, said: “This portfolio fits perfectly with our buying criteria.

“There are a number of asset management opportunities and initiatives across the portfolio which provide us with the opportunity to increase the rent roll and create additional value.”

Rupert Wood, a property director and asset management at St. Modwen, said the disposal is in line with St. Modwen’s strategic objective to refocus its portfolio on fewer, larger assets with a target to sell £150m to £175m of retail and small assets during 2018.

“We have now exchanged contracts to sell £144m of these assets so far this year and, combined with previous disposals, we have now sold £76m of the around £100m of small assets earmarked for sale when we announced our new strategy just over a year ago.

”As planned, we intend to reinvest the disposal proceeds into our industrial/logistics pipeline which, with a yield on incremental capex of around 9% and limited operating costs, is expected to deliver a marked pick-up in net rental income over the long term,” Wood said.

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