A newly listed real estate investment trust (REIT) focusing on the burgeoning life-science real estate market has made its first acquisition.

Life Science REIT has bought a nine-storey office and laboratory building near London’s St Pancras station for £77m (€89.6m).

The 50,000sqft Rolling Stock Yard building, completed in March 2020, was sold by Newmark Properties, Argo Real Estate and Investec Bank.

The acquisition was made through the purchase of Deepdale Investment Holdings, which owns the building.

The acquisition marks the first major transaction to be completed by the company since it raised £350m last month on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

The building is 76% let and the new owner will now seek to sign occupiers for the remaining vacant space.

Simon Farnsworth, managing director of Ironstone Asset Management, Life Science REIT’s investment adviser, said: “Rolling Stock Yard is a premium building at the heart of the important development area near London St Pancras, one of the UK’s most significant life-science hubs and part of the sector’s ‘Golden Triangle’, where Google, DeepMind, the Francis Crick Institute and other major organisations have located offices along with the new Moorfields Eye Hospital which will be completed in 2026.

“Rolling Stock Yard offers attractive current income but importantly also includes significant asset management opportunities including the creation of further laboratory space to drive additional rental income growth.”

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here. 

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