Helical plc has completed the sale of its 50% interest in Charterhouse Place Limited, the owner of The JJ Mack Building, London, EC1, to its joint venture partner, AshbyCapital, for £71.4m, with a minor dilution of 4p per share to the 31 March 2024 EPRA NTA. The transaction reflected a price of £139.2m for Helical’s 50% share of the property and at the sale date, the building generated contracted rent of £17.4 million (Helical share: £8.7 million) and was 90% let to six office tenants, including Sainsbury’s and Partners Group. An additional three retail units are let to Sainsbury’s and E-on Next. The net sale proceeds will be used to fund the Group’s best-in-class development pipeline.
Completed in September 2022, The JJ Mack Building was named after the market trader who occupied the site in the 1940’s. The 10-storey building, which comprises 200,611 sq ft of offices, 9,172 sq ft of terrace space, plus 5,474 sq ft of ground floor retail space, has market leading sustainability, wellness and smart building credentials. On completion it achieved a score of 96.4% under the BREEAM 2018 guidelines, the highest score in the UK for an office building, won the SECBE Digital Construction Award 2021 and, operationally, has been awarded EPC A and NABERS 5 Stars.
Matthew Bonning-Snook, Chief Executive of Helical plc, commented:
"The JJ Mack Building is truly a ”best-in-class” office building demonstrated by the rents we have achieved being significantly ahead of competing buildings in its sub-market. This sale is very material to Helical as it releases sufficient cash to ensure that the equity requirements of our whole and exciting office development pipeline, totalling over 685,000 sq ft, and 429 unit purpose build student accommodation scheme are now fully funded.
The project, purchased and developed with AshbyCapital, adds to Helical’s extensive and successful track record of working in partnership and we would like thank Peter and his team for all their support throughout.
As our recent Trading Update stated, construction is underway on three new office schemes (100 New Bridge Street EC4, Brettenham House WC2 and 10 King William Street EC4) in joint ventures, comprising over 450,000 sq ft of space, with plans progressing at our future development projects at Paddington W2 (235,000 sq ft of office) and Southwark SE1 (429 purpose build student accommodation units).
We will continue to recycle our portfolio, as market conditions allow, as we look to grow the current pipeline whilst focusing our near term attention on the delivering best-in-class space into a supply constrained 2026 market.”
“"We are delighted to have completed the purchase of our partner’s 50% share in The JJ Mack Building to add another market leading office asset to our uniquely high quality long term central London portfolio.
With only one 20,000 sq ft floor remaining to let, the transaction marks the conclusion of this highly successful partnership with Helical and we look forward to further joint projects in the future.”
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