Could the days of the big supermarket RDC be drawing to a close?
Investors LondonMetric Property Plc seem to think so, as they offload a 274,000 sq ft Tesco warehouse in Bolton – but keep a clutch of smaller urban logistics units, and promising to invest the proceeds of the Tesco sale in buying more.
LondonMetric’s surprise sale of the Tesco’s warehouse in Bolton for £24.4 million, comes just three months after buying it.
Despite off-loading the big shed LondonMetric has decided to hang on to the 11 smaller urban logistics units it purchased as part of the Cabot portfolio at the same time as the Tesco warehouse.
London Metric say they will recycle the £24.4m proceeds of the Bolton sale into urban logistics units.
Andrew Jones, Chief Executive of LondonMetric, explained: “Consumer shopping patterns in food retailing continue to evolve quickly and so in response to strengthening investor appetite for logistics assets over the last few months, we have decided to monetise this asset.
“In line with our strategy, we will recycle the proceeds into our growing urban logistics portfolio and our development pipeline which offer more attractive yields and greater certainty of growth.”
The 274,000 sq ft Tesco regional warehouse was acquired as part of the £117 million Cabot logistics portfolio in August 2017.
The unit is let to Tesco for a further four years at a rental of £1.395 million a year, a rent of £5.27 a sq ft.
