85 Somerfield Petrol Stations in UK Offered for £200 Million

Rapleys / Financial Times - June 8, 2007

Palmer Capital Partners, the venture capital-style property group run by Ray Palmer, has hired agents to sell 85 petrol stations let to Somerfield, the supermarket group. The portfolio is being marketed through agents CB Richard Ellis and Rapleys at a price of £200m, a yield of about 5.5 per cent. If achieved, it would mark a big profit on the £70m paid for an initial 140 properties two years ago.

In April 2005, PCP joined forces with Somerfield and partner RREEF, the property investment wing of Deutsche Bank, to buy the assets from oil group Chevron. Somerfield agreed to remain on the sites for 20 years under a reverse sale-and-leaseback deal. Since then, property values have soared.

The owners have spent £50m expanding and revamping many of the sites - at an average of £750,000 each. The estate has grown from 65,000 sq ft to about 110,000 sq ft with a target of 143,000 sq ft by the end of the year. Sphere: Related Content