13 jul 2020

Kamco Invest and M7 assemble transaction of UK regional office assets

Kamco Invest and M7 Real Estate (“M7”), the pan-European investor and asset manager, have completed the acquisition of three office buildings in three separate transactions across primary regional UK cities. The transactions are supported by Aviva Investors, who have provided a newly originated senior debt facility towards the purchase of the office assets.

The transactions are structured and distributed as a single transaction of Grade A regional UK office assets. The transaction comprises three high specification office properties in three major submarkets (Greater London, out-of-town Glasgow (Hamilton) and Bristol). The properties, which extend over a total of 208,262 sq ft, are fully occupied by a number of investment-grade tenants including: Everything Everywhere (EE), Scottish Power and Samsung Electronics, with an average unexpired lease term of 7.5 years. The investments will target a high single digit annual cash dividend.

Commenting on the acquisitions, Mohammad Al Othman, Executive Director of Real Estate at Kamco Invest, said: “We are delighted with this acquisition, which is in line with our strategy to grow our real estate platform with income generating Grade A properties which are let to creditworthy tenants. In fewer than five years, we have managed to build a successful track record, while expanding our international real estate platform to over USD 1 billion in total transaction value. We are delighted with the partnership that has been established with M7 during this process and look forward to continuing to develop our alliance with the M7 organization.”

David Ebbrell, Chief Executive of M7 Real Estate, commented, “We are excited to be working with Kamco Invest on this transaction and on future projects. The acquired properties are all located in markets which are experiencing a shortage of Grade A office supply and benefit from strong local market fundamentals, which we think will benefit from the trends we are seeing in regional office demand in a post COVID-19 environment. We look forward to managing these assets over the coming months.”

Hugh Fraser, Global Head of Capital Markets at M7 said, “It is great to close a new senior debt facility with Aviva Investors. Our team has developed a very close working relationship with Aviva Investors, which has enabled us to efficiently close this financing at competitive terms during these challenging market conditions.”