Canadian asset management group Brookfield has acquired UK science, innovation, and technology real estate platform Arlington from TPG Real Estate Partners (TREP) in a deal valued at £714 mln (€835 mln).
Arlington’s 36 assets are primarily concentrated within campus sites in the UK’s Oxford-Cambridge-London Golden Triangle, Europe’s leading research and development destination. The platform encompasses a portfolio comprising 1.6 million sq ft of standing assets and 1 million sq ft of near-term development potential. Brookfield said that it plans ‘to leverage its development expertise and global relationships in the sector to further build out centres of excellence given the increasing demand for this fast-growing sector’.
The acquisition of Arlington complements Brookfield’s 2020 investment in the Harwell Science and Technology Campus located south of Oxford and brings Brookfield’s total square footage in the Golden Triangle to 1.4 million sq ft of operating space.
TREP acquired Arlington in 2017 for £450 mln.
‘Arlington represents a compelling opportunity to expand our presence in the growing European science, innovation and technology real estate sector,’ said Brad Hyler, managing partner and head of European Real Estate at Brookfield.
‘When we acquired Arlington in 2017, we saw an opportunity to invest behind a high-potential property portfolio that had been adversely impacted by challenging market conditions in the wake of the Brexit vote,’ said Michiel Celis, managing director at TREP. ‘Since then, we have partnered with CEO James Raven to invest heavily in the platform and execute several non-core disposals and strategic add-on acquisitions to re-position the company as one of the largest integrated innovation real estate platforms in the U.K. We’re proud to see Arlington realize its potential and look forward to its continued success under Brookfield’s ownership.’
‘Our track record of growing occupancy by almost 15%, achieving double-digit rental growth on new leases, and collecting 100% of rents since the onset of Covid is testament to the quality of the platform and the Arlington team,’ said James Raven, CEO at Arlington.
