Tritax Big Box to buy UK Commercial Property REIT for $1.18 billion, ET RealEstate

BENGALURU: Logistics real estate specialist Tritax Big Box would buy UK Commercial Property (UKCP) to create UK’s fourth largest REIT in a deal valuing its smaller rival at about 924 million pounds ($1.18 billion), the firms said on Thursday.

Under the terms of the deal, each UKCP shareholder will be entitled to 0.444 new Tritax shares for each UKCP share.

Based on Tritax’s closing price of 160.2 pence on Feb. 9, the day the offer was made, the deal implies a value of 71.1 pence per UKCP share, representing a premium of 10.8% to the stock’s closing of 64.2 pence that day.

UKCP directors intend to unanimously recommend that shareholders vote in favour of the deal at the firm’s general meeting, the company said in a joint statement.

Tritax said UKCP’s 475 million pounds non-logistics assets could offer “attractive asset management and capital recycling opportunities”, with the combined entity expected to generate immediately identifiable cost savings of about 4 million pounds per annum.

Shares of Tritax and UKCP were up 1.5% and 1.7% respectively, in early trade.