J Sainsbury, the grocery store chain, is in superior talks to dump a portfolio of prime retail websites to a London-listed actual property investor for about £500m.
Sky News has learnt that LXi REIT, which has a market worth of about £2.5bn, is near agreeing a deal to accumulate the freeholds to just about 20 Sainsbury’s shops, which the grocery store then intends to lease again.
A property business supply stated on Tuesday night that LXi was more likely to search to boost lots of of hundreds of thousands of kilos in fairness to fund the acquisition, with a part of the consideration additionally together with an unspecified quantity of debt.
If confirmed, the deal would come months after it emerged that Sainsbury’s was exploring a sale of the portfolio.
A variety of different events are stated to have expressed an curiosity in buying it.
Supermarket teams are underneath strain from traders to enhance the effectivity of their steadiness sheets, with each Asda and Wm Morrison having been acquired by new homeowners previously two years.
LXi REIT has been lively this 12 months, agreeing a takeover of peer Secure Income REIT a number of months in the past.
Among the distinguished property it owns are properties which kind a part of Merlin Entertainment, the group behind the Alton Towers, Legoland and Thorpe Park theme parks.
It invests in business actual property property which profit from lengthy leases, sometimes lasting many years, and is a member of the FTSE-250 index.
LXI and Sainsbury’s each declined to remark.
Source: information.sky.com”