Real Estate Investors (REI) has sold its Birmingham headquarters in a £4.6m deal — exactly 30 days after the property group appointed a new head of acquisitions and disposals.
Recruited from London’s Square Metre Properties where he was a senior asset manager, Andrew Osborne’s arrival comes at the end of a busy six months of purchases for the company. So far this year REI has spent £8.6m on acquiring City Gate House in Leicester, a WH Smith-occupied retail unit in Bromsgrove and the former Sandwell College campus in Smethwick.
Although it is refusing to confirm exactly what it paid for the six acre campus site, the company did part with £1.8m for City Gate House, occupied by HM Revenue and Customs until August 2024 and bringing in £157,000 a year in rent. REI is also receiving £52,000 a year for the Bromsgrove shop for which it paid £500,000.
The Alternative Investment Market-listed group said it has identified several more potential opportunities which could see its spending top the £20m mark by the end of 2014, but it gave no hint it was negotiating the sale of its 12,933sq ft Cathedral Place headquarters to Canada Life, the UK’s leading annuity broker.
It is not known whether REI will continue to occupy its offices within the building, also home to two recruitment consultancies, Greenwell Gleason and Key Personnel, and the disabled and disadvantaged charity The Shaw Trust.
“This sale is significantly above our book value and more accurately reflects the potential value of properties within our portfolio and reveals a much improved regional property investment market,” explained REI’s chief executive, Paul Bassi.
“I anticipate continued further activity during the second half of the year in a significantly improved regional economy and property market and it remains our intention to secure real estate investment trust status within the near future,” he added.
The appointment of Andrew Osborne as head of acquisitions and disposals was, stressed REI’s chief executive, a vital part of that process. “I am joining REI at a very busy time with the company poised to continue its programme of growth in the Midlands region,” said Osborne. “I will be supporting the chief executive in identifying and evaluating investment opportunities as well as identifying properties in REI’s portfolio which are ripe for sale.”
With over 20 years’ experience in the UK commercial property market, Osborne has also worked as a regional director with property fund Highcross and served as a director of the Kenmore Property Group. He began his career at Mason Philips as an investment agency surveyor, before working for investment agency CBRE and as a property fund manager at Canada Life.
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