This Week's London Deal Sheet
The Deal Sheet is a weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email [email protected].
Aviva Investors has completed a letting at 30 Golden Square in Soho, London W1, following a sustainability-led redevelopment to decarbonise the building earlier this year.
The letting has been agreed with Highland Europe, a growth-stage investor in European technology companies, which will occupy almost 9K SF of office across the top three floors of the building under an initial 10-year lease.
The refurbishment project at 30 Golden Square, led by Structure Tone, forms part of Aviva Investors’ ongoing initiatives to retrofit and lower the carbon intensity of existing buildings in its portfolio.
In all, the work is estimated to have reduced CO2 emissions by 58 tonnes per annum, a reduction of more than 62%. As a result, the building is on track to receive BREEAM Excellent rating, placing it in the top 10% of UK refurbishment projects with regards to its sustainability credentials.
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Innovation campus Here East, created by clients of Delancey on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, has let space to Hawk London, a new entrant in the film and television industry.
Hawk will establish its headquarters, studio and showroom at Here East to lease Hawk Lenses to the commercial film market in the UK.
The creative digital cluster includes some of London's leading tech and creative businesses and academic institutions.
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Lane7 is to open two new London sites before the end of 2023, the first in Victoria toward the end of the year, and it has another as-yet-unnamed site also in progression. It will also add a second site in Birmingham’s Bullring, which will be the group’s largest venue yet, plus another in Bath.
The indoor karting experience will also open a site in Dublin this year, and the company said it is seeking vacant city centre, multifloor department store sites.
DEVELOPMENT
SFP UK has signed a joint venture agreement to invest in the UK build-to-rent real estate market. The strategy will focus on repurposing underutilised commercial assets to residential-led, mixed-use projects, the partners said.
The first project is in the Finneston region of Glasgow and other sites will be based around fast-growing populations.
SFP Group, with a majority ownership in the JV, will be responsible for organising the capital-raising. Redevco, as SFP’s local partner, will concentrate on sourcing opportunities and on the asset and development management.
Redevco UK’s business is putting more emphasis on the residential sector, including schemes in Oxford and Brighton. Switzerland’s SFP Group is looking to expand on its residential business in Europe.
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Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia has offered to house the Museum of Migration, currently based in Lewisham shopping centre, across three floors of a 20-storey tower he wants to build as student accommodation near Tower Hill.
The proposal is to be considered by the corporation’s planning committee and backers include Gus Casely-Hayford, the director of V&A East, but it is opposed by some local residents and representatives including the Lord Mayor, Nicholas Lyons.
Ahluwalia, who founded Dominus in 2011 after fleeing Idi Amin’s Uganda as a child, said moving the museum to the planned 65 Crutched Friars development would secure its future.
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Residential-led mixed-use developer Regal London has confirmed it is pressing ahead with its 37-39 Clarendon Road, Watford office development.
It acquired the site in September 2021 with an already-implemented planning permission, which it amended to increase the number of homes to 168, and to improve the grade A office space with ancillary café and gymnasium.
The development secured an overall planning obligation package totalling more than £4.6M, which included an affordable housing financial contribution of circa £2M.
Regal London’s plan is for a £150M scheme that will have studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, as well as 150K SF of office space. The residential building will be 25 storeys and all homes will be private for sale.
ACQUISITIONS
Dalata Hotel Group has acquired a newly finished hotel in London for £44.3M. The 192-bedroom hotel, bar and restaurant at 240 Seven Sisters Road, adjacent to Finsbury Park Station, will launch in the summer under the Maldron brand.
Prior to opening, Dalata will invest in excess of £2M to enhance the property, which has expected stabilised annual earnings of £4M, the company said.
It will be Dalata's first Maldron hotel in London and its 18th in the UK, and it has a Shoreditch property under construction. Dalata has purchased the entire issued share capital of Tide Developments for £44.3M from Furadino Holdings.
FINANCE
Real estate debt specialist M7 Capital has provided, on behalf of its UK debt fund TREC II, a £7.4M loan to David Samuel Properties, secured against the 260K SF Bouverie Place shopping centre located in the coastal town of Folkestone in Kent.
The asset is 100% let to a mixture of national brands such as TK Maxx, JD Sports and Asda, and David Samuel Properties has assets under management in excess of £420M.
This is the sixth loan M7 Capital has provided David Samuels Properties, with a diverse mix of other assets located in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
PEOPLE
Christian Schulte Eistrup has joined real estate investment manager Clarion Partners as a managing director and co-head of EMEA Distribution.
Based in London, he will work alongside co-head Jeroen Verheijden across Europe and the Middle East, focused on product development, capital raising and client management.
He joined from KGAL where he was head of International Institutional Business and a member of the firm’s investment committee. Prior to KGAL, he was a managing director at Optimum Asset Management where he was a member of its management and investment committees.
