CHALLENGE
Savills were instructed to support Blackstone’s acquisition of St Modwen Properties PLC. St. Modwen is a British-based property investment and development business, specialising in the regeneration and remediation of brownfield land and urban environments.
The business comprises:
- Logistics – designs, builds, owns and manages high-quality industrial & logistics assets in the UK.
- Homes – an award-winning housebuilder, delivering contemporary new homes across the UK.
- Strategic Land & Regeneration – promotes and master-develops sites for housebuilding, commercial and regeneration projects.
SOLUTION
Blackstone engaged Savills to carry out comprehensive real estate due diligence on the St. Modwen business. A multi-disciplinary Savills team undertook a review of St. Modwen’s UK-wide Logistics, Homes and Strategic Land & Regeneration sites, harnessing local market knowledge from senior development and investment colleagues across Savills’ strong network of regional offices in the UK.
Our advice included an estimate of Gross Development Value and sales rates on existing sites (and a number of future sites), to provide an opinion on remaining revenue and likely returns metrics, as well as typical land values and costs for comparable sites. The advice was summarised in comprehensive asset books for the Logistics, Homes and Strategic Land & Regeneration businesses, providing an overview at asset and regional level, including an identification of key risks.
This was further supported by information and analysis on the wider development and housebuilding sector and, where relevant, tailored to St. Modwen’s assets. This included: UK market trends, local authority data and projections, demographic data, land and house price indices, and analysis of key competitors.
RESULTS
Our development and investment expertise, combined with our unmatched national network of offices and joined-up working culture, allowed us to fulfil our client’s scope of works and deliver high quality outputs within the tight timeframes required. St. Modwen was acquired by Blackstone for c. £1.3bn in June 2021.
