Leopard Capital UK, a newly established property investment fund, has completed its maiden acquisition after purchasing a warehouse let to Amazon in Welwyn Garden City for £3.215m, reflecting a 5.5% net initial yield.
The 22,291 sq ft industrial unit, at 30 Watchmead, is let to Amazon on a 10 year lease from April 2016, with a break in 2021. It is used by the e-commerce giant to make 1-2 hour deliveries to their Amazon Prime subscribers and is currently their fourth largest facility of that type in the UK.
The UK logistics sector enjoyed a record levels of take-up last year, thanks in large part to Amazon, which accounted for over 20% of logistics take-up- a record share for a single occupier.
The company has been aggressively expanding its UK distribution network to meet growing customer demand, investing £6.4m in the UK since 2010. It currently has 13 fulfilment centres including a recently opened warehouse in Daventry, two in Doncaster and one each in Coalville (Leicestershire), Dunfermline, Dunstable, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay.
Yesterday the company announced a new distribution hub in Bristol, where it plans to create 1000 jobs. It will also open new fulfilment centres in Dunstable, Doncaster, Tilbury and Warrington in 2017.
Leopard Capital, established by Alex Fordyce last year, specialises in industrial and distribution assets across the south. The company has equity ready to deploy and is looking to grow the size of the fund to £20m in assets over the next 2 years.
Whitmarsh Holt Young acted for Leopard Capital and Glenny’s acted for the vendor, The Paradox Foundation.