Helical Bar makes active start to 2012
Helical Bar today updated the market on its current trading, saying that it had continued to add to its portfolio with £90m of acquisitions completed since September 2011. These include land and buildings in Corby for £70m. The group has also bought The Powerhouse in Chiswick for £3.7m in a sale and leaseback deal, and The Pavilion, a new development of office space in Southampton on the Hedge End business park, bought for £2.4m from receivers.
Earlier this month the group also completed the purchase of Broadway House, a 35,000 sq ft multi-let building of retail and office space in Hammersmith, for £14.1m.
Meanwhile Helical Bar has also been making £40m of sales during the same period, including properties in Gliwice and Wroclaw in Poland, further residential sales in Liphook and the disposal of the remaining industrial units in Southall at the group’s development on Scotts Road, for £1.4m – just above book value.
The group expects to submit a detailed planning application this month for its major development proposed on the site of the St Barts hospital, to provide residential accommodation, office space and retail premises in London EC1. It has achieved planning consent for a car dealership at its industrial scheme in Stockport; construction is due to start this spring on a residential and retail development at Parkgate in Shirley, Birmingham; contracts have been exchanged for a retail warehouse scheme at Cortonwood near Rotherham; and planning has been submitted for an Asda foodstore and 70,000 sq ft of non-food retail premises in Birmingham, at Tyseley.
Helical Bar completed 18 new lettings in the four months to the end of January, increasing its contracted income by £490,000 per annum, and completed 24 lease renewals to secure total contracted rent of £690,000 per year, including £50,000 of rental uplift. But the group also lost 13 tenants during the period as a result of lease expiries and after four tenants went into administration, meaning that its annualised income was reduced by a total of £730,000 per annum. This figure does not include Bon Marche or Peacocks, which are formally in administration but are currently still occupying their units under existing leases – Helical Bar is in talks with both companies.
The group said it was pleased to have secured £133m of new bank facilities against a background of tightening bank lending, with a number of banks withdrawing from the market completely.
