Segro clinches £159m of disposals in UK and Germany

Industrial REIT Segro has sold two large non-strategic assets and a small portfolio of non-core regional assets in Germany and the UK for a total of £159 mln (€195 mln).

The London-listed company completed the sale in January of the Thales campus in Crawley for £80 mln to a large UK institutional investor .The Thales campus is fully let and comprises two offices and a bespoke industrial building, totalling approximately 35,000 m2 of lettable space.

Separately, the industrial property specialist sold four regional UK industrial estates for £26 mln to a joint venture between two UK/Swedish pension funds. The four regional UK industrial estates are located in Runcorn, Lymedale, Pucklechurch and at East Midlands Airport and total 84,000 m2. At 30 September 2012, the portfolio had a vacancy rate of 8.1%.

In Germany, the company exchanged contracts with a private German investor to sell the 155,000 m2 MPM engineering and manufacturing facility in Munich for £53 mln. Closing of the deal is expected in March 2013. The property was acquired by Segro as part of a sale-and-leaseback agreement with Krauss Maffei (formerly MPM) in 2007.

This is the first of the large non-strategic assets to be sold in Continental Europe, the company said in a statement.

As part of the MPM site disposal, Segro has committed to manage and fund a roof refurbishment programme at the facility during 2013 which is estimated to cost £6 mln. Based on the disposal prices, the combined net initial yield of these transactions is 8.0%, or 8.2% including rental top-ups.

Over the past 12 months, Segro has now announced or completed approximately £680 mln of non-core disposals, including three of the ‘big six’ assets. The company has £610 mln of non-core assets remaining, of which £175 mln relates to the three remaining large non-strategic assets: Pegasus Park in Belgium, Vimercate in Italy and Neckermann in Germany.