M7 Sells Pennywell Road, Bristol for Housing

London, 19 September 2018 – M7 Real Estate (“M7”), the pan-European investor and asset manager, announces that it has recently sold a vacant industrial building of circa 89,652 sq ft in Bristol on behalf of a major financial fund. Pennywell Road was leased to Aviva who had not been in occupation for a number of years. A comprehensive surrender premium covering all liabilities was agreed by M7 who took vacant possession of the premises.

The units were awkward in configuration with limited circulation space, poor eaves height and a substantial mezzanine floor of mostly concrete construction. Any works to bring the units into a marketable state would have involved substantial expenditure that would not deliver the requisite rents. A marketing appraisal and asset management strategy was therefore undertaken which identified an alternative use as a residential development site delivering an enhanced value over its existing use as an industrial estate.

Following a very short marketing period a ‘Best Bids’ tender process was undertaken to identify a preferred purchaser and an unconditional sale was subsequently agreed with Investin PLC for £4.15m.

James Chasen, Asset Manager at M7 commented, “This sale, four months after taking vacant possession, demonstrates our ability to realise additional value through identifying a higher alternative use that had been missed previously on an effectively redundant building. We were delighted to have worked with Investin PLC to help deliver an important housing site for this area of Bristol.”

M7 was represented by Russell Property Consultants and Knight Frank.