Hi again guys,I got some information back on the Home HQ...

Hi again guys,

I got some information back on the Home HQ Artamoon property today.

Once again I got the sense from the agent that it's a high quality property.

Timing was not on the side of the sales campaign as it was conducted in the middle of last year when there was a great deal of perceived uncertainty around when interest rates would peak.

There were bids during the last sales campaign but nothing that came near what the fund manager (Fortius) considering to be fair value so they rolled it over for another year.

The main draw backs to the property are that it's an ultra long term leasehold with the local council retaining ownership of the freehold (this is extremely unusual in shopping centres) so there's no potential of the fund benefiting from a change of use development in the future.

They also had both an anchor retail tenant (who was leasing a large amount of space) and the food court operator fall over during COVID.

Fortius made a big investment into remodelling the food court after purchasing the property (I actually vaguely remember this being discussed when URB bought the stake) so that tenant falling over was a particular blow however they've since been replaced and it looks like the large vacant retail space will also be leased again shortly.

The agents view was pretty positive in terms of it selling in 12 months time.