Hansteen to sells IMPT portfolio to Warehouse REIT

Hansteen has accepted a £116m offer for the Industrial Multi Property Trust portfolio from fellow London-listed investor Warehouse REIT less than a year after buying it for less than £28m.

Last April, Hansteen's acquisition of London-listed IMPT and its portfolio of 51 UK multi-let properties was declared unconditional, after the FTSE 250 property investor upped its offer from 300p to 330p.

Hansteen then absorbed the portfolio into its own UK asset management platform and had begun the process of increasing the occupancy and income across the portfolio.

"However, during the successful implementation of this strategy," joint chief executives Ian Watson and Morgan Jones said i na statement, "we received an unsolicited approach from Warehouse REIT to acquire the portfolio at a level which provides a return in excess of our initial expectations and which we were willing to accept."

The funds will partly be used to reduce the balance on Hansteen's revolving debt facility.

The portfolio contains 500 units with a total floor area of approximately 1.65m square feet, of light industrial property with associated workspace and offices. The passing annual rent roll of £8m as of 30 June 2017 has increased to a current contracted rent roll of near £8.5m a year.

Hansteen has sold IMPT on a debt free basis for cash, with the value attributed to the portfolio of £116m payable upon completion, which is expected to occur at the end of March 2018. There are no conditions to completion.

Going forward the Board will consider new acquisition opportunities or distributions to Shareholders."