Sirius Real Estate has bought the Earl Mill business park in Oldham in the UK for £5.7m (R131m).
This marks the group’s second acquisition for the year, after the recent purchase of the Reinsberg business park in Dresden, Germany. The parks have a combined vacancy rate of 26%, or 14,000m2.
Earl Mill features a mix of warehouse and office spaces, which Sirius will manage under its BizSpace brand.
“Our acquisition of Earl Mill in Oldham generates day one income and offers further significant potential to improve rental tone and develop new revenue streams through improvements to the site,” CEO Andrew Coombs said.
Earl Mill comprises 174,000 square feet of space, with 71% warehousing and the balance offices. It generates an annual net operating income of £844,000 and is 95% let.
Also on Thursday, the company said Tom Lampard had been appointed as a property director for the self-storage division and would join the BizSpace management board, overseeing both the UK and German markets.
Coombs said Lampard was the ideal candidate to help drive Sirius’ growth in the high-yielding self-storage market, where the group sees strong potential within their existing portfolio while it considers a selection of other acquisition opportunities.
Lampard was formerly at Shurgard Self Storage where he served as real estate director overseeing the southeast of England and Manchester.
Coombs said Sirius had near-term plans to launch further storage sites.
“The company sees significant potential for further market expansion, having identified several sites within its existing UK and German portfolios that are well suited for conversion to, and where there is clear demand for, self-storage,” he said.
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