Thames Valley: Goodman/L&G seek £475m plus sale of Arlington Business Parks

Goodman and Legal & General Property are bringing to market the remaining UK office campuses in their Arlington Business Parks Partnership (ABPP) fund. They are seeking offers in excess of £475 million. The partners have appointed Strutt & Parker and Cushman & Wakefield to sell the assets as well as significant surrounding development land.

The assets in the South East include Hammersmith Embankment; Uxbridge Business Park; buildings at Oxford Business Park; two buildings at Bracknell and development land sites at Reading and the Solent Business Park.

Uxbridge Business Park comprises five buildings including two new speculative developments. Tenants at the park, paying rents at between £28 and £30 per sq ft, include Amgen and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Quoting rents on the new space are around £35 per sq ft.

The 340,000 sq ft spread across 23 buildings at Oxford Business Park has average rents of around £20 per sq ft with the most recent prelet a new 40,000 sq ft building to AC Neilsen at £25 per sq ft.

2 and 3 Arlington Square, Bracknell comprises 155,000 sq ft over two buildings which are principally let to Regus at circa £20 per sq ft. The campus includes two acres of development land.

ABPP was launched by Legal & General Property and Goodman in 2003 to invest in, develop and manage business parks across the UK, with good accessibility to large metropolitan areas. At the end of December 2011, ABPP was valued at £1.1 billion. At that stage the fund comprised 20 business parks throughout key regional UK office markets, but with a geographic weighting bias towards the South East.

Credit: CoStar