Business park near M6 Toll bought by investors
AMIXED-USE business park in Staffordshire has been sold to London-based investors in an off-market deal.
Ribston UK Industrial Property Partnership has acquired the Lakeside Business Park, in Cannock, for an undisclosed sum from Oldburybased property investment and development company Goold Estates.
Goold Estates bought Lakeside Business Park, formerly known as Lakeside Plaza, in 2014 for £1.95 million and carried out a programme of refurbishment.
The 3.8-acre site, which is adjacent to the M6 Toll Road and the A5, is fully let and occupiers of the 13 units include Electrium, Newlife, Euro Car Parts, Boing Zone and the Silverblades Ice Rink.
Lakeside Point, a nine-storey office building, was part of the estate when acquired by Goold Estates.
In 2016, Goold Estates sold the 16,293 sq ft building to Cannockbased developer the Pritchard Group in a £700,000 deal.
Dominic Goold, managing director of Goold Estates, said: “Our intention when we acquired Lakeside Plaza was to tidy up the estate and let the units as well as undertake a proactive marketing campaign to fill the voids.
“On acquiring the property, we liaised with the existing tenants where appropriate to regenerate the site.
“It was at only 70 per cent capacity.
“It is now fully let with a healthy annual rental income of more than £300,000, representing a strong yield.”
Adam Ramshaw, regional director at property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton, acted on the deal on behalf of Goold Estates.
Mr Ramshaw said: “With so much investor demand in the sector it would have been easy to go down a traditional sale route.
“But on this occasion we were able to maximise value for Goold Estates by engaging in an off-market deal with a reliable and proven buyer such as Ribston.”
In a separate deal, Goold has also sold four industrial units at Garden Street, in Walsall. The units, with a total of 11,854 sq ft of space, have been acquired by Walsall-based instrumentation products manufacturer Howard Butler in a deal worth £355,000.
Matt Tilt, director of industrial agency at LSH in Birmingham, said: “The property offered a rare opportunity for an occupier to purchase a building that they could part occupy for their own use while receiving income from the remaining units let to tenants.”