News

Howard Property Investments acquires RBS building

June 2010  

Howard Property Investments, the largest division of the Howard Group of Companies, has acquired the RBS building in Silbury Boulevard, Central Milton Keynes.  

The transaction is part of the Group's five year strategic plan launched in January this year, which focuses on the repositioning of the company's existing £100m property portfolio.  

The building, purchased for £3.2m from Blackrock Land (Silbury) Ltd, houses RBS corporate, commercial and Lombard businesses and private bank Coutts. It is the first acquisition for Howard Property Investments in central Milton Keynes. The company already owns warehouse and high specification office investments at Knowlhill.  

RBS have four and a half years to run on their current lease at a rental of £260,000pa.

The property in Silbury Boulevard is located within an active area of redevelopment in central Milton Keynes. At the beginning of the year Network Rail was given the green light by Milton Keynes' planning authority to build a new 400,000 sq ft national centre building on the nearby site of the former hockey stadium. Major new lettings have also been agreed with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office who took 33,800 sq ft in Northgate House on Silbury Boulevard and the Department of Work and Pensions, taking up a 41,000 sq ft refurbishment in Southgate House, Midsummer Boulevard.  

Michael Summers, the Howard Group's Investment Director comments; "This latest acquisition is a good fit for our new portfolio repositioning. We have recently sold some of our older stock, located out of our newly defined geographic area, so we are actively seeking to expand our property assets in the region. We see Milton Keynes as one of our principal growth towns and we are delighted to complete this deal. We have inherited a high quality tenant which we are looking forward to working with for many years to come."  

Howard Property Investments currently has access to over £50m of funds to achieve its growth objectives. The team is confident that further progress will be made over the next 12-24 months.