A large industrial park in Merseyside has been acquired by property regeneration firm Harworth Group in a £26m deal.
Saturn Park, on junction 4 of the M57 in Knowsley, consists of 416,000sq ft of modern warehouse space across three units with offices, as well as 13.1 acres of open storage land.
Harworth Group, which has offices across the North and Midlands, said the move comes as it continues to grow both its investment portfolio and its presence across the North West.
Lynda Shillaw, chief executive of Harworth, said: “This off-market transaction is an excellent use of our significant financial headroom to further improve the resilience and depth of our investment portfolio, whilst also providing clear asset management opportunities to generate future value gains.
"The acquisition also underlines our ongoing commitment to invest in the regions and with obvious synergies to the Port of Liverpool, it directly supports Government efforts to rebalance the UK economy.”
Haworth said the park generates a passing rent of £2.14m per annum, reflecting a net initial yield of around 7.7%.
The site’s warehouse space is let to two tenants including Singleton Trading, a specialist importer and distributor of toys and goods to the North West, which occupies two units totalling 317,600 sq ft.
The third 77,000 sq ft unit is let to Relonchem, an independent pharmaceutical company.
Four tenants occupy the majority of open storage land across five leases, generating an annual passing rent of £628,000, while 10,500 sq ft of the 22,000 sq ft of office space is let to the NHS.
Harworth said it will use its asset management experience to drive further value at Saturn, including refurbishment works and enhanced marketing of the remaining vacant office space and land, also exploring the potential for further development on the 4.25 acres of vacant land.
B8 Real Estate acted on behalf of the vendor, with the deal worth £26m plus acquisition costs.
Richard Bousfield, head of income at Harworth, added: " In buying Saturn Business Park in a matter of weeks, we’ve once again we’ve proved our ability to quickly transact and be a trusted counter-party for vendors.
"We remain firmly in the market for similar industrial property with asset management potential and I look forward to completing further deals in due course.”
