LONDON: The Board of Directors of LXi REIT, the specialist inflation-protected long income REIT, announced long-let, index-linked acquisitions for a combined total investment of approximately £23 million.

These Acquisitions are being funded by the Company’s new Revolving Credit Facility (RCF), announced on 22 July 2019. The Company is also in solicitors’ hands on additional acquisitions which will fully deploy the balance of the RCF.

LXi REIT is not developing the forward funding investments or assuming development risk and is forward funding each property on a fixed price basis. The Company will receive an income from the developers during the construction periods.

The Company has exchanged contracts to acquire, by way of a pre-let forward funding, a new 85-bedroom Premier Inn hotel in Romford, Greater London.

Romford forms one of the largest commercial, entertainment and leisure districts in London with a considerable catchment area and excellent transport links.

The hotel has been pre-let to Premier Inn Hotels Limited, with a guarantee from its parent Whitbread Group plc, on a new, unbroken 25-year lease from completion of the building works, with five yearly rental uplifts in line with the Consumer Prices Index.

Premier Inn is the UK’s largest hotel brand, operating over 72,000 rooms across 785 hotels, and is part of Whitbread PLC, a FTSE 100 constituent and the UK’s largest operator of hotels and restaurants, with a market capitalisation of approximately £5.6 billion.

The Company has exchanged contracts to acquire, by way of a pre-let forward funding, a new servicing and sales centre for Mercedes commercial vans and trucks in Smethwick, Birmingham.

The new development will comprise 35,647 sq ft of warehouse, servicing, showroom and office space over two floors, on a four acre site.

The property has been pre-let to Midlands Truck and Van Limited, with a guarantee from its parent Ballyvesey Holdings Limited, on a new, 30-year lease from completion of the building works (with a one-off break right in year 20), with five yearly rental uplifts in line with the Retail Prices Index.

Ballyvesey Holdings is the privately owned parent company of a wide range of trading subsidiaries. Established in 1970, the group’s main activities are centred around transport and logistics, truck sales and after sales support, trailer manufacturing and spare parts sales, transport industry services, construction equipment sales and service and property rental and development.

Smethwick is an established industrial location, four miles west of Birmingham city centre, with good access to the M5, M6 and M42 motorways.

A key driver of anticipated demand for the sale and servicing of commercial vans and trucks from the property is the fulfilment of online shopping.

The Company has exchanged contracts to acquire a recently constructed 25,000 sq ft Aldi foodstore in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, a seaside resort just south of Blackpool with residents’ earnings one of the highest in the north of England.

The property has been let to Aldi Stores Limited on on a long lease, with over 19 years unexpired to first break. The rental uplifts are fixed at 2.5% per annum compounded and the current passing rent equates to a low £10 per sq ft.

Aldi Stores Limited is the principal UK trading company of the Aldi group, a leading global supermarket chain which operates 10,000 foodstores across 20 countries.

Commenting on today’s announcement, John White, partner of LXI REIT Advisors Limited, said: “We are pleased to be acquiring, on an off-market basis, these attractively-priced assets let on long leases to strong tenant covenants across robust sectors with high residual values, which are expected to provide our shareholders with further diversified, secure and inflation-linked income and capital growth potential.”

Edited by Kazim Rizvi