News
11 June 2013
Charities Property Fund passes £500 million milestone with purchase of four car showrooms
The Charities Property Fund, managed by Cordea Savills, has acquired a portfolio of car showrooms for £17.4 million. The Fund has also passed the £500 million milestone and is now fully invested with £510 million under management.
The showrooms are four state of the art car dealerships trading the premium brands of McLaren, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Volvo, BMW, Mini and Mercedes in the prime centres of Chester, Worcester, Harrogate and Solihull. They are all let on very long leases with annual fixed rental increases and options to extend for a further 20 years. The acquisition price reflects a 7.2% yield after the costs of acquisition.
The Fund has grown rapidly, with net assets increasing by more than 160% from just over £190 million in June 2009 to £510 million at the end of March 2013. It continues to deliver a high and secure level of income. The current net yield of 6.0% makes it extremely attractive to charities and compares favourably with the 4.5% per annum average dividend payable by the funds in the IPD Pooled Property Fund Index (1), 1.76% available on UK 10-year Gilts(2) and 3.66% yielded by the FTSE All Share (3).
Harry de Ferry Foster, Fund Director, commented: “We are delighted that we have been able to raise over £300 million of new equity over the last three-and-a-half years in a very difficult market and we have also successfully invested it while continuing to substantially outperform the index. Performance has been excellent and the Fund has outperformed the AREF All Balanced Funds Index over one, three, five and 10 years and since launch. In Q1 2013 its outperformance was more than double that of any other charity Fund (4). We believe this strong performance should continue due to the Fund’s focus on key growth areas such as London offices and supermarkets, combined with low voids and long leases to strong covenants.”
(1) Source: Investment Property Databank
(2) Source: Bloomberg
(3) Source: Bloomberg
(4) WM Common Investment Fund Quarterly Review Q1 2013, IPD/AREF Q1 2013