Investors targeted properties occupied by some well-known business brands as Acuitus’s July auction saw the sale of £33.81m of assets and a success rate of 86%.
Three trade counter investments let to Travis Perkins sold for £1.45m, £1.12m and £800,000 at respective yields of 6.2%, 4.3% and 6.7%. A pair of B&M stores also attracted strong interest and sold for £900,000 and £740,000 at yields of 7.3% and 7.6% respectively.
Auctioneer, Richard Auterac, commented: “Investors are targeting assets which are well-let at sustainable rents to brands that they feel have resilience and have good trading prospects”.
The highest price at the sale was achieved by Duval House – a vacant 12,263 sq ft office property close to London’s Heathrow Airport. Offered with a guide price of £975,000, it eventually sold for £2.54m. Auterac comments: “The property is located close to where the new Third Runway would be built at Heathrow and the price paid reflects the building’s potential and the tight supply of property around the airport”.
Industrial investments remain the object of concerted buying. A 29,105 sq ft freehold, index-linked asset at Luton close to the M1, sold for £2.1m at a yield of 5.6%.
Among the leisure properties offered, The Graduate – a freehold bar and restaurant in York that is let to Stonegate Pub Company until 2030 at a current rent of £152,553 – sold for £2.5m at a yield of 5.7%.
Richard Auterac: “This was our most successful sale of 2019 and shows how confidence in the room has strengthened as the year has progressed. It brings the total of assets that we have sold in the past six months to more than £110m.
“Almost a third of the lots at this sale achieved prices in excess of £1m with an average lot size for properties located in England of close to £900,000.
“Vendors at this auction included a number of major institutions and investment funds and, as the results show, there are tremendous opportunities for sellers to tap into concerted investor demand.”
The next Acuitus auction will take place on October 24th at The Montcalm Hotel, 2 Wallenberg Place, London W1H 7TN.
