Oxford Science Park owner WLTM strategic partner for development

By Nicky Godding

11 May 2021

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Magdalen College Oxford, owner of The Oxford Science Park, one of the UK’s leading parks for science and technology companies, is seeking a strategic partner with which to accelerate development of the Park.

At present, The Oxford Science Park has approximately 250,000 sq ft of existing leased and managed buildings. Its 14.75 acres of development land has capacity to add a further 420,000 sq ft to support the growth of existing occupiers and enable new companies to join the thriving campus.

It is also home to some of the country's most successful tech and biotech companies, including Oxford Nanopore, Vaccitech - the Oxford University Spinout responsible for the AstraZeneca vaccine, Sensyne Health, Organox and more than 100 other businesses.

According to a report in The Times, Magdalen College is looking to sell a 40 per cent stake in the park for about £100 million, just five years after buying back half of the site for £18.1 million.

Rory Maw, Bursar at Magdalen College Oxford and Director of The Oxford Science Park, said: “Beyond its unrivalled strategic location, one of the key features of The Oxford Science Park’s success has been the ability of occupiers to scale up on site – with many starting out in incubator buildings before expanding into larger, dedicated facilities. Our role is to support the growth ambitions of existing occupiers, providing flexibility with their space requirements, and others wanting to join this unique and collaborative community. We believe a strategic partnership provides the most attractive mechanism to raise capital to accelerate the timetable for developing additional capacity to meet unprecedented demand and to further the discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship taking place at The Oxford Science Park.

Magdalen College is being advised in its search for a strategic partner by Cushman & Wakefield.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.