Roadside Real Estate focused on “scaling its pipeline”
Roadside Real Estate says it is focused on “scaling its pipeline” and is in negotiations on a significant number of target assets via its joint venture (JV) with Meadow Partners.
The specialist investment and development firm, formerly Barkby, said it has continued to focus on its JV roadside real estate strategy, whilst also executing on disposals.
Roadside said it expects to deploy much of the £100m capital allocation it has agreed with Meadow by the end of the 2024 financial year.
This comes as the group releases its interim results for the six month period ending 31 March, during which it completed three JV acquisitions.
The acquired assets were in Stoke (£5.3 million), Gosport (£2.8 million), and Coventry (£3.3 million), and were acquired in line with the agreed JV funding split, whereby Meadow owns and funds 97% of the JV whilst Roadside owns and funds 3%.
Roadside’s two-wholly owned assets, in Wellingborough and Maldon, are now fully let. The Wellingborough asset is valued at £3.9 million and has a contracted rent of £237,000 per annum from tenants including Greggs, Formula One Autocentres, City Plumbing Supplies, and Brewers Decorator Centres.
The Maldon development is valued at £4.8 million and has a contracted rent of £286,000 per annum with tenants including Costa Coffee, Formula One Autocentres, Toolstation, and CEF.
Following the disposal of Workshop Coffee and the wind down of Centurian Automotive in the previous financial year, Roadside anticipates completing the disposal of its four remaining pub units in the third quarter of 2024. This will leave Cambridge Sleep Sciences as the its only non-real estate investment. The group said a further announcement will be made once the disposal of the remaining pubs is completed.
During the period, Roadside recorded revenue of £130,000, and an operating profit of £3.97m. This included £6m in relation to a partial sale of Roadside’s investment in Cambridge Sleep Sciences.
Charles Dickson, Roadside Real Estate executive chairman, said: “Having refinanced the business we are now actively pursuing the assembly of our institutional quality roadside real estate portfolio, with c.£100 million imminent pipeline via the above mentioned JV. We have a quality roster of prospective tenants keen to occupy our planned acquisition sites, which will feature a combination of drive-thru, foodvenience, local logistics, trade counters and electric vehicle charging stations.
“By the end of the 2024 calendar year, we expect to have deployed much of the £100 million capital allocation agreed with Meadow, subject to diligence and commercial negotiation, increasing the company’s management and development fee earnings, whilst noting that there is no certainty as to the total quantum and timing of deployment.”