Sirius acquires UK industrial park and land in Germany

Sirius Real Estate, the owner and operator of branded business and industrial parks in Europe, has acquired an industrial park in the UK and a strategic land parcel in Germany.

Sirus has completed the acquisition of a multi-let light industrial park in Carnforth, Lancashire, for £9.05m, representing an 11.4% net initial yield including acquisition costs, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The acquisition will add about 16,000m² of light industrial space to the group’s UK portfolio and has been made using proceeds of July’s capital raise.

The freehold asset is fully let to eight tenants on FRI (full repairing and insuring) leases. It produces a net operating income of £1.1m a year. The site comes with planning permission for about 3,250m² of new industrial space.

In addition, Sirius has completed the €3m acquisition of a nine-acre strategic land parcel adjacent to its 77,600m² Oberhausen multi-use business park in the Ruhr area of northwest Germany, providing the opportunity to expand the park through a potential development.

“We are continuing to make good progress on our acquisition pipeline, following on from 12 months of active investments in both Germany and the UK,” said CEO Andrew Coombs.

“The Carnforth acquisition presents the company with a number of value-add opportunities to utilise the Sirius platform to grow the income and value of the asset. In addition, both Carnforth and the land that we have acquired beside our Oberhausen site offer interesting development potential to add further industrial space,” he said.

In October, Business Day reported that Sirius achieved a 14.9% increase in rent roll for the half-year, driven partly by its successful asset acquisition programme.

Rent roll increased by 5.5% like for like, reflecting the group’s ability to continue to drive organic growth across both Germany and the UK.

In July, the group successfully completed an equity fundraising of €180m to provide funds to execute on a pipeline of attractive acquisition opportunities, after the successful deployment of the proceeds of its November 2023 fundraise.

mackenziej@arena.africa