Tritax Big Box REIT pre-let a 1m sq ft development in one of the largest letting deals in the UK in 2024.

It made the announcement in a trading update for 2024, in which it also announced that it had sold £181.2m of non-core assets it acquired as part of the UK Commercial Property REIT (UKCM) merger earlier in the year. Combined with £125m sales from its logistics portfolio meant the company sold £306.2m during the year – giving it the firepower to start new developments (including data centres, which it announced last week).

The company was tight-lipped on the details of the 1m sq ft pre-let, except to say it was to a “global leader in e-commerce”, but added that it was part of £11.1m of contracted rent secured during the year from its development pipeline.

It also commenced development on 1.9m sq ft of logistics schemes in 2024, 79% of which were either pre-let or pre-sold with the remaining 21% under offer. It said that it expects to achieve a 7.0% average yield on cost across the 2024 starts.

A further 1.2m sq ft of planning consents were secured in the year and a further 11.1m sq ft submitted awaiting determination. It now has 5.3m sq ft consented land available for development.

The company secured £11.6m of additional rent from its operational portfolio during the year, broken down into:

• £8.4m increase in contracted rent from rent reviews reflecting an average 11.7% increase in passing rent, and 34.6% increase across all open market reviews.
• £3.2m increase in contracted rent from other asset management initiatives, 15.9% ahead of previous passing rent.

The portfolio’s ERV was up 5.4% on a like-for-like basis over the year, reflecting favourable supply/demand dynamics. The portfolio now has an embedded portfolio reversion of 26%.

As mentioned, £306.2m of disposals (at a yield of 5.7%) were made during the year – all above book value including £181.2m of non-strategic UKCM assets.

The portfolio was valued at £6.5bn at 31 December 2024 (including the UKCM portfolio. Dec 2023: £5.0bn).

The portfolio has 3.3% underlying vacancy, with further 2.4% from speculative developments competed in November 2024 to give total of 5.7% (Dec 2023: 2.5%), which is worth £21.5m per annum in rent.

The weighted average unexpired lease term (WAULT) was 10.3 years (Dec 2023: 11.4 years).

Loan to value was reduced to 29% (Dec 2023: 32%), with the weighted average cost of debt at 3.1% and the weighted average debt maturity of 4.5 years.

The company will announce its full year results on Friday 28 February.