New Joint Venture established with initial investment capital in excess of £100 million

Acquisition of Maplin Electronics HQ & Distribution Unit, Rotherham

Oxenwood Real Estate is delighted to announce the formation of Oxenwood Catalina Limited, an equity joint venture between Oxenwood Real Estate Capital LP and Catalina Holdings (Bermuda) Ltd (“Catalina”), a Bermuda based reinsurance investment company. The Joint Venture intends to establish a portfolio of income producing assets as well as those with asset management potential. The partners’ equity together with leverage will provide the Joint Venture with initial firepower in excess of GBP £100m.

The Joint Venture has made its first investment by acquiring the UK headquarters and distribution centre of Maplin Electronics Limited, for £15.1m from Merseyside Pension Fund. The 198,422 sq ft property is located near Rotherham and is leased to Maplin for a further 18.32 years. The passing rent is £1,006,000 per annum, which reflects a net initial yield of 6.3%.

The property was purchased out of the cash resources of the Joint Venture and is expected to be refinanced with a senior loan facility in due course.

Oxenwood Real Estate LLP will be the Property Advisor to the Joint Venture.

CBRE represented Oxenwood Catalina Limited and CPP represented Merseyside Pension Fund.

Jeremy Bishop, Co-Founding Partner, Oxenwood said: “We are delighted to have formed this Joint Venture quickly after the formation of Oxenwood and to have made our first investment. The Joint Venture fulfils a key part of our initial business plan and we look forward to working with the Catalina team to secure high quality income based assets for the JV.”

Stewart Little, Co-Founding Partner, Oxenwood commented: “The acquisition of Maplin’s headquarters and distribution centre is the first from a pipeline of transactions across the UK which we are considering for the Joint Venture and represents an excellent seed asset. Despite increasing equity flows into the market, we are encouraged by the range of opportunities we are seeing and we very much look forward to progressing our investment programme.”

Chris Fagan, Chairman & Chief Executive of Catalina said: “Catalina is attracted to the long term stable cash flows and growth potential from UK Commercial Real Estate. Jeremy and Stewart have a great track record of building portfolios of distribution warehouses amongst others, and Oxenwood’s co-investment with Catalina ensures an effective alignment of interest from an experienced UK property partner.”

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