Warrington Council sells shed for £51m
The troubled local authority has sold a 380,000 sq ft industrial unit in off Junction 23 of the M6 in Haydock to Clarion Capital Partners.
Warrington Council, which is under pressure from government to explain its £1.8bn debt pile, bought the St Helens unit for £45m in 2019 when it was developed.
Five years on, the authority has offloaded the asset, which is let to healthcare services firm Movianto for the next 10 years, for £50.8m to Clarion.
The acquisition will sit in Clarion’s UK-only logistics fund. The fund has grown rapidly, with £170m spent on 11 assets totalling 1.15m sq ft in the last five months.
Florina Capraru, director at Clarion Partners Europe, said: “Haydock is an outstanding UK logistics location in one of Europe’s most densely populated and undersupplied regions, which has experienced significant rental growth outperformance in recent years.
“With the UK market increasingly characterised by the bifurcation between institutional quality, sustainable properties and everything else, with Grade A space accounting for 72% of take-up in 2023, the opportunity to acquire a modern, institutional-quality logistics asset further added to the appeal.”
Clarion Partners Europe was advised by King Street Real Estate and Gowling WLG. The council was advised by TLT LLP.
Decent return for the council with 5 years of decent income also.
By oscar
As a Warrington resident I’m pleased that WBC has made a profit on this investment. The portfolio is very worrying to residents – it’s on a huge scale and some of the decisions have been dumb, which calls diligence processes into question – so it’s good to see that we’ve done ok on this one
By Jim
On this occasion maybe keeping the asset and enjoying the benefits of the rental income may have been the better option. Unfortunately the article doesn’t mention the rental income.
By Anonymous
can’t grumble about this, well done to WBC estates officers, if we sold off all the assets we are in debt to i would have thought we would clear the debt and have a simlar return ? who knows …?
By Warrington Lad
Warrington Council may have made a’profit’, but in real terms, after adjusting for inflation they probably made around a 10 % loss over the period
By Anonymous
After solicitors frees etc the profit may not be that much?
By wiganLad1
With inflation, WBC has at best, made its money back.
By Anonymous
1.8 billion debt. Well done labour I just hope that the local community see exactly what you are and get rid.
By Anonymous