Westbrook Partners sought to dispose of Dolphin Square (“the Target”), the iconic central London estate to our client AXA IM (“AXA”). The Target comprised 1,233 apartments in Pimlico and is more than 100 years old, being one of the first and largest designed-for-rent buildings of its kind in London.
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As such this represented a large scale, complex and unique opportunity, which required a specialist transaction team in order to develop a clear view of pricing and identify key risks and upsides. Complexity was added given the operating environment changed significantly during the transaction process as a result of Covid-19.
Savills became aware of the opportunity and were instructed by AXA to assist them in pursuing the opportunity, offering our unrivalled understanding of the Private Rented Sector.
We undertook detailed property and corporate due diligence, to understand the structure of the asset and the unique make-up of the constituent parts of value, which included residential, serviced apartments and a range of ancillary uses, all of which were impacted differently by Covid-19.
This process included inter-alia, a detailed review of the VDR including IM, financial model and data packs, vendor meetings and Q&A, liaising financial and diligence providers to ensure a joined up approach, thorough review of rental and sales comparables over time, detailed operational expenditure due diligence to understand the true run rate cost base of the Target, review of proposed capex, scenario analysis comparing the as-is and potential to-be positions after proposed capex, Covid-19 impact analysis, planning due diligence interloper analysis and more.
In a challenging operating environment we were able to provide insightful, concise and proactive advice to our client, allowing them to gain a firm grasp of value and successfully close the transaction.