Great Portland Estates sells Britton Street property to overseas investor

Great Portland Estates has exchanged contracts to sell 24/25 Britton Street, EC1 to an overseas investor for a headline sale price of £64.5m, it announced on Friday equating to £64.06m after the deduction of vendor top ups.

The FTSE 250 firm said the headline price reflected a net initial yield of 4.07%, and a capital value of £1,255 per square foot.

It said the premium to the September valuation was 6.2%, with completion scheduled for 22 January.

The office element of the building was “comprehensively refurbished” by Great Portland Estates in 2011 to provide 49,900 square feet of high quality accommodation arranged over two lower ground, ground and three upper floors.

It said the office space was let to Kurt Geiger, where it recently re-geared the lease to extend the term to 2035.

In addition, there were two retail units fronting Britton Street at 1,500 square feet.

The total contracted rental income was £2.81m per annum, inclusive of vendor top ups, equating to £55 per square foot overall, reflecting a minimum uplift at review of £65 per square foot on the best office space.

Great Portland Estates said the current weighted unexpired lease term was approximately 14.8 years to the earlier of expiries or breaks.

“The sale of 24/25 Britton Street concludes a successful business plan for GPE,” said chief executive officer Toby Courtauld.

“Having refurbished and pre-let the property to Kurt Geiger in 2011, we subsequently re-geared the lease in 2019 before marketing the property for sale.

“The disposal is consistent with our strategy of recycling capital out of mature assets.”