Great Portland Estates acquires West End Flex conversion opportunity

Property developer Great Portland Estates has acquired a West End Flex conversion opportunity at The Courtyard, WC1 from the City of London Corporation.

GPE exchanged contracts to acquire the long leasehold interest at The Courtyard for £28.6m, or £462 per square foot, and has made the simultaneous sale of its short leasehold interest in 95/96 New Bond Street, W1 to the City of London for £18.23m, or £2,039 per square foot, in line with its March valuation. GPE will make a net cash payment to CLC of £10.4m on completion in January 2025.

The FTSE 250-listed group's refurbishment of The Courtyard was planned to start in Q425 with roughly £62.0m of investment. The building was expected to deliver £8.0m of fully managed rent roll annually, with a further £1.0m from the retail space, generating a running yield in excess of 6% and an ungeared internal rate of return of more than 11%.

GPE investment manager James Harrop-Griffiths said: "This transaction represents a unique opportunity to recycle capital from a low-yielding retail asset into a fantastic office development opportunity for our Fully Managed business plan. The Courtyard is a well-located building, that's full of character, and is perfectly suited to our Fully Managed offer. We are creating a 'Flex cluster' within an already popular area of the West End as we advance towards our ambition to grow our Flex portfolio to more than 1.0m square feet."

As of 0920 BST, GPE shares were down 3.43% at 408.0p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com