HLCL Helical Plc

1 November 2024

HELICAL PLC

("Helical" or the "Group")

HELICAL COMPLETES SALE OF ITS 50% INTEREST IN THE JJ MACK BUILDING

Helical plc has completed the sale of its 50% interest in Charterhouse Place Limited, the owner of The JJ Mack Building, London EC1, to its joint venture partner, AshbyCapital, for £71.4 million, with a dilution of 4p per share to the 31 March 2024 EPRA NTA. The transaction reflected a value of £139.2m for Helical's 50% share of the property.

At the sale date, the building generated contracted rent of £17.4 million (Helical share: £8.7 million) and was 90% let to six office tenants, including Sainsbury's and Partners Group. An additional three retail units are let to Sainsbury's and E-on Next. The £71.4 million net sale proceeds will be used to fund the Group's best-in-class development pipeline.

Completed in September 2022, The JJ Mack Building was named after the market trader who occupied the site in the 1940's. The 10-storey building, which comprises 200,611 sq ft of offices, 9,172 sq ft of terrace space and 5,474 sq ft of ground floor retail space, has market leading sustainability, wellness and smart building credentials. On completion it achieved a score of 96.4% under the BREEAM 2018 guidelines, the highest score in the UK for an office building, won the 2021 SECBE Digital Construction Award and has been awarded EPC A and NABERS 5 Stars.

Matthew Bonning-Snook, Chief Executive of Helical plc, commented:

"The JJ Mack Building is truly a "best-in-class" office building, demonstrated by the rents we have achieved being significantly ahead of competing buildings in its sub-market.  This sale is very material to Helical as it releases sufficient cash to ensure that the equity requirements of our entire exciting development pipeline, totalling over 685,000 sq ft of offices, and a 429 unit purpose build student accommodation scheme, are now fully funded. We are already making good progress in delivering this, with construction underway on three new office schemes (100 New Bridge Street EC4, Brettenham House WC2 and 10 King William Street EC4) and plans progressing at our future development projects at Paddington and Southwark.

"The JJ Mack Building was purchased and developed with AshbyCapital, adding to Helical's extensive and successful track record of working in partnership, and we would like thank Peter and his team for all their support throughout.

"We will continue to recycle our portfolio, as market conditions allow, as we seek to grow the current pipeline whilst focusing our near term attention on the delivering best-in-class space into a supply constrained 2026 market."

Peter Ferrari, Chief Executive of AshbyCapital, said: 

"We are delighted to have completed the purchase of our partner's 50% share in The JJ Mack Building to add another market leading office asset to our uniquely high quality long term central London portfolio.

"With only one 20,000 sq ft floor remaining to let, the transaction marks the conclusion of this highly successful partnership with Helical and we look forward to further joint projects in the future."

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