Picton acquires Mill Place, Gloucester from Robert Hitchins Ltd

Published by

Peter Davison

Real estate developer Robert Hitchins Ltd has completed the sale of Mill Place Industrial Estate in central Gloucester to UK REIT, Picton Property Income for £10.4 million, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.1 per cent.
The estate offers a range of 38 industrial, storage and office premises alongside the A430 Bristol Road totalling circa 365,000 sq ft on a 19-acre site. The 25 occupiers include Nuovo Deroma, Reuseaworld, Genesis Timber and Gloucester Carpets.

Robert Hitchins Ltd, based at Boddington, Gloucestershire, is one of the leading property developers and investors in the South West and South Wales.

Senior Asset and Development Manager John Jones said: “The sale of Mill Place to Picton will enable us to further reposition and modernise the commercial property portfolio via new development and investment acquisition.”

Picton, established in 2005, is an award-winning Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) investing in UK commercial property. Its property portfolio consists of 46 assets in the industrial, office, retail and leisure sectors all over the UK.

It acquires, creates and manages buildings for around 350 commercial occupiers across a wide range of businesses. Last year it acquired the adjoining Madleaze Trading Estate in Gloucester for £13.1 million.

Its combined ownership now totals more than 29 acres, with 670,000 sq ft of warehouse and ancillary accommodation, with a site coverage of 52 per cent.

Michael Morris, Chief Executive of Picton, commented: “We are pleased to have the opportunity to increase our ownership in Gloucester. By combining these two holdings, we have created a larger asset, providing our occupiers with greater choice and the potential to unlock further asset management opportunities.

“In the short term, we intend to improve and reposition the estate to broaden its appeal to new and existing occupiers, while also exploring longer term options to realise the full potential of this substantial city centre, canalside location.’

Picton Property were represented by Colliers International. Robert Hitchins Ltd were unrepresented.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.