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Renowned for his professionalism over 30 years with Bidwells, Saul provides clear and objective investment and development funding advice to our biggest clients.
Going into a deal, Saul always has the most up-to-date market knowledge at his fingertips. He leads our in-house commercial research team and specialises in advising investors and developers on the science and technology sector.
He was responsible for securing £600m of development funding at Brookgate’s CB1 in Cambridge, now the new home of Apple, Microsoft and Samsung’s UK research teams, and has advised investors and developers on many of the Oxford to Cambridge Arc’s research clusters. He knows what makes the UK’s knowledge economy tick.
Saul’s long career at Bidwells is also peppered with creative deals for offices, retail and leisure units, shopping centres, industrial estates, supermarket portfolios and large-scale distribution centres, across Bidwells’ territory and further afield.
His reputation for tenaciousness means that when you reach the toughest part of a negotiation, he will provide only the most robust advice and representation.
Saul has won awards with CoStar and EG Radius.
Saul always provides first-class advice and knows his market exceptionally well.
If you’d like to hear more, browse our Arc Market Databook papers > https://www.bidwells.co.uk/what-we-do/arc-market-databook/
Life sciences is a relatively new and still niche real estate investment sector. These assets offer large, profitable returns, while diversifying portfolios. The sector ticks many boxes on an investor’s shortlist, but understanding the factors that most influence value is crucial.
Investing in Life Sciences Real Estate: Value
Shakespeare House is a four-storey office building comprising 15,850 sq ft. The property was sold with a leaseback in place to Hewitsons LLP for a term of five years, with a tenant only rolling break option actionable from 18 months into the term, subject to six months' notice. The passing rent was £451,725 per annum reflecting £28.50 per sq ft.
The property comprised a multi let secondary industrial estate let to seven different tenants across 12 different units comprising 145,824 sq ft, plus some external storage and a solar farm. The property has a WAULT to expiry of 3.27 years and 1.74 years to breaks. The total passing rent was £608,805 per annum reflecting an attractive net initial yield of 8.40%, this was deemed reversionary to circa 9.67%.
A market-defining deal to sell two laboratory and office buildings on the world-renowned Cambridge Science Park, on behalf of a Cambridge College to Brockton Everlast, for £45.1m. The two self-contained prime office and laboratory buildings total 74,800 sq ft and are let to internationally prominent life science companies Astex and Takeda, both with an unexpired lease term of 10.5 years, with an annual income of circa £1.28m.
Disposal of residential keyworker scheme let to Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust providing an indexed linked income stream with c 23 years unexpired. The property is let on a 25-year lease from 9 July 2018 to the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (c.23 years remaining). The current rent is £723,351 reflecting an average rent per bed of £3,078 per annum or £59.19 per week.
One Cambridge Square is a new 99,743 sq ft speculative office development, which has been designed by Perkins and Will, to be certified BREEAM Excellent, will comprise seven levels with 53 basement parking spaces (initially incorporating a minimum of 27 electric charging points), 364 bicycle spaces, shower and changing facilities, as well as retail outlets on the ground floor. Construction is due to start before the end of the year, with practical completion anticipated in late 2022.
A portfolio of two multi tenanted and one single let R&D buildings comprising a total of 65,000 sq ft of office and laboratory space let to six science and tech occupiers. The holding produces a total income of around £815,000 per annum.
Sale of city centre freehold Cambridge office building totalling 23,816 sq ft, with an excellent car parking ratio of 1:433 sq ft. Multi let to five tenants on six leases AWULT of 4.31 years and 2.58 years to breaks. Total income £657,924 per annum which equates to an overall rate of £27.63 per sq ft. Potential reversion to in excess of £30 per sq ft overall. Longer term redevelopment optionality.
Development of a new state of the art HQ building comprising 44,523 sq ft. This includes 20,161 sq ft of high-quality office content (NIA) and 20,709 sq ft of production space (GIA). Let to BP Chargemaster on a 10 year unbroken lease term at a rent of around £13.50 per sq ft. BP Chargemaster is the UK’s largest provider of electric vehicle charging designing, building, selling and maintaining units.
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