Further commercial success for the RO with the sale of its property in Lytham St Anne's to Savills Investment Management
12 month real estate dealflow now in excess of £54 million
The RO announces the sale of its property in Lytham St Anne’s to Savills Investment Management for £6.7 million, bringing its total of sales and acquisitions to in excess of £54 million over a 12 month period.
The property in Lytham St Anne’s
was originally acquired with two floors of tired offices above retail space.
With a strong location underpinning the investment opportunity, the RO was able
to acquire planning to add an extra floor to the building and convert the
office space into a Travelodge Hotel.
This dramatically improved both the hotel and the retail premises below.
Overall the site has now been
transformed into a thriving trading location in a popular costal town, with 90%
of income secured to national covenants and AWULT of 15 years.
The sale is part of the RO’s
ongoing strategy to reposition its property portfolio and to recycle the
proceeds for re-investment into core income and value-adding opportunities
predominantly in the South East of England.
The RO is a family owned trading
and investment business which has a long heritage of investing in real estate
assets. It has been an active and successful 12 months for the RO’s Real Estate
division, which recently appointed David Kershaw from Balfour Beatty Group, as
their new General Manager and has now sold 5 sites for a total combined value
in excess of £37 million. The Group has
also been actively acquiring properties and has made 3 new investments for a
combined total in excess of £17 million.
Over the next decade the RO has a
prospective development programme with a gross development value in excess of
£200 million and the business owns or manages over 1,000,000 square foot of
commercial property across the UK, predominantly in the South East of England.
Nick Moore, Senior Investment Manager for RO Real Estate commented:
“We are proud to see our hard
work and investment on this asset pay off. The transformational work done at
Lytham is testament to our asset and development management teams who have
significantly increased value through their efforts. The sale followed a highly competitive
bidding process, which demonstrated strong investor demand for long income
assets. We look forward to recycling
this capital.
CBRE advised the RO and Savills
Investment Management were represented by Savills on this transaction.”
David Kershaw, General Manager added:
“We believe in developing strong
and committed relationships and have established a core group of advisers who
bring us opportunities that match our criteria with an initial value of between
£2 million and £7 million. We are
actively rebalancing our commercial property portfolio and as a family owned
business can make decisions quickly and efficiently with access to a healthy
balance sheet. We would welcome the
opportunity to hear from more partners with investment ideas, particularly with
an emphasis on development opportunities.”
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For further information
RO Real Estate
John West
Belvedere Communications
Notes to Editor
RO Real Estate is a
privately-owned company specialising in commercial property investment and
development in the south east, with a portfolio of more than £80 million of
properties. It is the property division of the RO Group, which was founded in
1932 by Stanley Graham Rowlandson. His innovative attitude to business has been
carried forward by his son, and current Chairman, Richard Rowlandson, who used the
Group’s property and retailing experience to develop over 40 neighbourhood
centres in the 1980s and 90s and 30 Pegasus Retirement Homes in the 2000s. Now
Graham’s grandson and current Group Managing Director, Edward Rowlandson has
grasped the mantle overseeing the Group’s investment in various entrepreneurial
ventures which in addition to commercial property investment include
residential development and high quality holiday lodge parks.
