Cordea Savills fund targets over €358m of assets by year-end

Property investment manager Cordea Savills said it expects to make further acquisitions this year to boost the portfolio value of the Bishopsgate Long Term Property Unit Trust from £200 mln to over £300 mln (€358 mln).

The company announced a £11.9 mln warehouse acquisition on behalf of the fund on Friday, bringing the total value of completed investments by the fund to over £200 mln since the start of 2013.

Cordea Savills said the fund has a further £50 mln of assets under offer and is actively targeting a number of industrial investments in order to increase its weighting to the sector.

The latest acquisition relates to a B&Q warehouse in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. The purpose-built 8,000 m2 warehouse is let to B&Q for 13 years with five-yearly, upward-only rent reviews. The acquisition price reflects a net initial yield of 7.9%.

Portfolio manager Patrick Lowther commented: 'In under 12 months, we have acquired a diversified and well located portfolio of 12 properties with an average lease length of 11.39 years and a portfolio yield of 6.5%. With secure income, negligible voids and a number of asset management opportunities, the assets acquired so far form a solid foundation for the core portfolio which we continue to build and which will be capable of delivering the fund’s income-based strategy and which we believe is well placed to outperform the benchmark in the long term.'

The Bishopsgate Long Term Property Fund Unit Trust is an unregulated, open-ended Jersey resident unit trust investing in UK property and managed by Northern Trust International Fund Administrators.