British Land has published its annual results, revealing an exceptionally good performance for the past financial year. During the year to the 31st March 2015, British Land garnered a total accounting return of 24.5 per cent, a 4.5 per cent increase on the 20 per cent return recorded during the preceding year. This allowed profit... Read More
According to Savills Market in Minutes report, there has been an 18 per cent year-on-year increase in deals over €100 million throughout Europe in Q1 of 2015. The report also found that portfolio transactions increased by 23 per cent year-on-year, accounting for over two thirds of all ‘mega deals’ and 45 per cent of the total... Read More
New legislation allowing tenants to buy their beer from any supplier has prompted Britain’s biggest pub landlord, Enterprise Inns, to radically rethink its approach to estate management. Nearly half of the UK’s 50,000 publicans are already free to buy beer from any supplier. That freedom is about to be expanded nationwide,... Read More
Taiwan-based Cathay Life Insurance has paid £575m for a prestige City of London office and retail block less than 200 yards from the Bank of England. The 440,000 sq ft Walbrook Building remained empty long after its completion in 2010 by Minerva when it was a publicly traded UK developer. The company was acquired the following year... Read More
Asset adviser Hermes Investment Management has made its second multi-million pound purchase in Croydon this year. Last month the British Telecom Pension Fund vehicle acquired the South London town’s only dedicated dining and leisure complex, when it paid Aberdeen Asset Management £33m for Grants Entertainment Centre. The... Read More
Commercial Estates Group (CEG) has acquired a trio of office assets in the South of England totalling £22.7 million, and committed an additional £10 million for refurbishments. The Octagon in Colchester was acquired from Shay Property Investment for £9 million. The 98,795 sq ft property It is currently multi-let to tenants including... Read More
The trend for novelty cafés has become hugely popular in London, with everything from crisp sandwiches to imported cereals making a splash in the local market. At the centre of this boom lies Shoreditch, where Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has now announced plans to establish a café which serves breakfast in bed. From the 18th to... Read More
Global logistics and distribution space owner, Prologis, has confirmed it has let a 310,000 sq ft Bedfordshire warehouse it speculatively built last year to Amazon. The internet giant is expected to have its latest UK distribution centre at Prologis Park Dunstable operational by this autumn and has already started recruiting the... Read More
Belfast’s Windsor House office block — one of the tallest buildings in Ireland — has been acquired by Hastings Hotels. The leisure group paid £6.5m for the 23-storey complex and will submit conversion plans within weeks. The 122,557sq ft landmark building was taken over by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) after its... Read More
Growth in the industrial sector has fallen somewhat since its stellar performance during 2014, with experts citing uncertainties due to the general election along with a drop in demand for Britain’s major exporters for the lull. However, the industry posted a surprisingly strong level of growth during March, leading many to believe that the... Read More
Canary Wharf Group has launched a community performance programme at Crossrail Place, the Foster + Partners designed Crossrail station/retail and leisure destination, which opened to the public at the beginning of this month. The initiative, launched in partnership with The Space performing arts centre, will deliver a summer of activities... Read More
Vacancy rates within the office market served by the M25 motorway are at their lowest since 2001 — driving rents to an all-time high. Announced this morning by Knight Frank at its annual M25 breakfast presentation, the number of empty offices in the South East for the first quarter of 2015 now stands 5.9 per cent. The property... Read More
Less than a month after submitting plans for the redevelopment of its Nottingham Broadmarsh shopping complex, intu Properties is seeking approval for the multi-million pound transformation of its Milton Keynes centre. Part of a decade-long £1.3bn upgrade programme of its UK sites, the country’s biggest owner-operator of shopping... Read More
South African firm Artisan Real Estate has this week confirmed that Edinburgh’s Victorian arches are to be converted into a retail and leisure quarter in the latest phase of the redevelopment of the city’s Old Town. The arches, which were constructed in 1875, are located under Jeffrey Street and are currently protected by a... Read More
Business Improvement Districts and enterprise zones are becoming increasingly important aspects of regional growth, with the majority providing the premises and scope for small businesses to expand and thereby contribute strongly towards their local economy. According to the latest annual report by the Heart of Manchester BID, this has had a... Read More
Property firms Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ are to become one of the largest global real estates services companies due to an exciting merger taking place near the end of the year. Operating under the Cushman & Wakefield name, the combined company will have a total revenue of $5.5 billion, 4 billion sq ft of global space and... Read More
Manchester is becoming an increasingly popular destination for European investors, with the rate of development building as the government presses forward with its “Northern Powerhouse” goal. Hoping to capitalise upon this is German real estate investment firm Patrizia Immobilien AG, which has this week purchased the 20 acre First Street... Read More
The newly elected Conservative government has been urged by Birmingham based business leaders that they need to “work urgently” in promoting the confidence and growth of the West Midlands. While the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce has pushed the West Midlands region to create a combined authority, which was originally... Read More
Patron Capital — the pan-European property investor — has continued its UK acquisitions campaign by scooping up properties in Reading and Leeds for more than £100m. Arlington Business Park in the Theale district of Reading accounted for three-quarters of that amount, Patron confirmed in a statement, with The Mint, a Grade A office... Read More
Although far better than a shifting Government coalition, one of Britain’s biggest real estate consultancies is warning the commercial property industry to expect “air pockets” triggered by political uncertainty. According to a commercial briefing issued by Knight Frank there is good reason to believe the UK economy — that... Read More
Amidst fear from respondents that the value of homes will be reduced significantly due to fracking in the Manchester, Lancashire and Sussex areas, we look into how it will affect the commercial property industry. Fracking is the activity of drilling into the earth, which then, with a mixture of sand, water and chemicals, is injected... Read More
Skanska has entered into a contract with Harald Kværner Eiendom AS to build a commercial property and a parking garage in Jessheim, Norway. The value of the contract is US $42.81M. The work will start in May and the project is expected to be completed in March 2017. This contract, which will be included in order booking for Skanska... Read More
