Meta exits Regent’s Place building for £149m as landlord plots revamp
Meta is leaving the Regent’s Place building for £149 million while the landlord renews the plots
- British Land builds ‘London’s premier innovation and life sciences campus’
Facebook owner Meta has bought out the lease on a building in Regents Place in London, which the landlord has earmarked for a major new project.
The Regent’s Park-adjacent 1 Triton Square building is one of two buildings Meta has leased in the area, and analysts suggest the move is indicative of skittishness over real estate exposure among tech companies amid an uncertain economic outlook.
The property’s landlord, British Land, told investors on Monday that Meta had bought out the lease for £149m, warning that this would result in a 0.6 per cent dilution of earnings per share, after interest savings, for the six months until March next year.
British Land plans to ‘reposition’ Regent’s Place as ‘London’s premier innovation and life sciences campus’
However, it said it was “comfortable” with market expectations for 2024, “due to better collection of historical Covid arrears than expected”.
It also said the move gives it the opportunity to ‘accelerate’ plans to ‘reposition’ Regent’s Place as ‘London’s premier innovation and life sciences campus’.
British Land is one of Europe’s largest listed real estate investment companies, with a portfolio worth approximately £13 billion.
Regent’s Place is a fully managed 12-acre campus, with over 20,000 employees and residents, located between Great Portland Street and Warren Street tube stations.
In addition to Meta, current customers include Amazon Fresh, HMRC and Atos.
But development is currently repositioning itself to focus on life sciences and innovation.
British Land said 1.2 million sq ft of leasing was completed across the wider portfolio in the five months to the end of August, with returns 13.1 per cent above estimated rental value (ERV).
The company last week increased its estimated rental value growth outlook for the retail park for fiscal 2024 to 3 to 5 percent from 2 to 4 percent previously, driven by “significant” leasing momentum in the business.”
British Land Shares rose 1.6 percent to 321.1p in early trading on Tuesday.
Simon Carter, CEO, said: Operationally, we are seeing strong leasing activity which reflects the exceptional quality of our portfolio and has resulted in our recent upgrade to expected ERV growth in retail parks.
“We have also strengthened our balance sheet over the period and continue to actively recycle capital by divesting non-core assets before book value.
‘Meta’s handover of our building at 1 Triton Square also allows us to accelerate our plans to reposition Regent’s Place as London’s premier innovation and life sciences campus.’