Property group seals £35m deal for Scottish offices

Northern Irish property investor and developer Wirefox has snapped up hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space to the west of Scotland in a bumper £35 million deal.

Nevis House at Hamilton International Business Park is among the offices acquired by Wirefox. Picture: Contributed

The portfolio comprises a string of out-of-town office blocks within various business parks surrounding Glasgow. The collective floor space amounts to more than 384,000 sq ft.

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The buildings include Nevis House at Hamilton International Business Park, the current IBM base in Cumbernauld, three offices at Trilogy Business Park, housing NCR and Laing O’Rourke, and 1 Forrest Gate at Tannochside Business Park, which is home to Kwik-Fit Financial Services and Hoover.

Steven Flannery, director of investments at Wirefox, which recently acquired Silvan House in Edinburgh for £18m, said: “The acquisition of such an extensive and high-value office portfolio, following soon after the £18m purchase of Silvan House, further extends Wirefox’s ever-growing UK presence.”

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The deal came as a new report said that offices will provide the biggest property investment opportunities over the next 12 months.

The research, by property investment platform BrickVest, also revealed that 48 per cent of institutional investors were planning to increase their allocation to commercial real estate.

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Nearly two-thirds of institutional investors believe the biggest opportunities to make a strong return will be found in the office sector. This represents a marked increase from the same poll of about 100 property-focused investors conducted last October, when just 20 per cent selected this option.

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The latest study shows that 42 per cent of institutions believe that the industrial sector will present the biggest investment opportunities over the coming months, down from 44 per cent in October.

Around three in ten selected the hotel sector, up from 20 per cent last year, and a quarter cited the retail and leisure sector, down marginally from last year.

Meanwhile, the report revealed that just 8 per cent of investors are likely to decrease their allocation to commercial property over the next 12 months. Nearly two in three believe that the number of property investment opportunities will increase over the next five years.

Emmanuel Lumineau, chief executive at BrickVest, said: “We expect to see the highest level of volatility from the office sector as many international firms currently headquartered in the UK may put decisions on hold over their long-term office space requirements.”

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