Mapletree acquires business park in Reading for Â£500 million

MAPLETREE Investments Pte Ltd has acquired a business park in the UK from Oxford Properties Group. (Lynette Khoo, Business times, Singapore

The consideration is said to be £500 million (S$997.6 million), according to reports in the UK media. Nestled in a campus setting in Reading, Berkshire, the 79 ha freehold business park named Green Park has approval to provide about 2.1 million sq ft in lettable space. Green Park is home to global corporations such as PepsiCo, Huawei, Quintiles, Veritas and Cisco. Some 1.4 million sq ft of Grade A offices across 19 buildings have been built, and have a strong occupancy of 93 per cent.

There are plans to increase the park’s lettable space to about 2.5 million sq ft, Mapletree said on Wednesday. The development of the unbuilt space will be phased out in anticipation of future demand for offices.

Mapletree group CEO Hiew Yoon Khong said that this acquisition is aligned with the group’s current five-year business plan to acquire quality, income-producing assets with long weighted average leases to expiry which are anchored by a strong tenant base, to provide stable and growing yields. Green Park’s offerings include support amenities such as conferencing facilities, convenience retailers, as well as food and beverage (F&B) outlets housed in various amenity centres and standalone buildings. More such complementary spaces for retail, F&B and hospitality facilities have been planned to enhance the business park.

Oxford Properties Group, the real estate arm of the Canadian pension fund OMERS, had bought the business park from Prupim (now M&G Real Estate) for around £400 million in 2011. Since entering the UK in May 2015, Mapletree has built a portfolio of office and student accommodation assets. Including Green Park, the group now has about £1.4 billion in assets under management in the country.