WP Carey in £22m sale-and-leaseback with TDG

US investor WP Carey announced on Tuesday that one of its publicly held non-traded REIT affiliates has purchased eight cold storage facilities from UK logistics and supply chain management company TDG. The transaction price amounts to a total of £22 mln (EUR 26 mln), including acquisition fees, in an all-equity transaction.

The purchase of a ninth cold storage facility is pending, subject to final approvals and is expected to close in the next few weeks, the company said. The properties are leased back to TDG on a long-term basis. The nine properties, which total over 46,000 m² of cold storage warehousing and office space, are located across England and Wales.

TDG operates throughout Europe, including the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, the Benelux, Poland and Hungary, and is 100% owned by private equity investment firm Douglas Bay Capital.

Agents on the transaction were Celtic Asset Management and GVA Grimley for TDG and Knight Frank for WP Carey.

'The UK public cold storage industry has proved a defensive and stable one in recent months,' said Jennifer Walsh, director of WP Carey. She added: 'This transaction further demonstrates WP Carey's ability to work with private equity firms in order to develop alternative financing structures that support their broader investment strategies as well as provide capital to their portfolio companies.'