Workspace announced the completed acquisition of Mckay securities on Friday, which increased the company’s portfolio of gross property assets to £2.9 billion with 5.5 million sq ft of lettable space.
The group bought McKay for a valuation of 297p per share, representing a total amount of approximately £272 for the entire value of shares both issued and to be issued by the real estate investment company.
The firm reported a partial consideration for the transaction of an allotted 10,513,098 new ordinary shares of £1 each in the capital of the company, subject to admission.
Workspace confirmed that applications had been made to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for the shares to be admitted to the premium listing segments of the FCA official list and to trading on the premium segment of the LSE main market for listed securities.
The company said it expected the admission of the ordinary shares to become effective on 9 May 2022 at 8am, after which the shares will be credited as fully paid and will rank pari passu alongside the existing ordinary shares.
The admission is set to bring the total number of Workspace shares to 191,638,357 in issue, with the total voting rights in the company at 191,638,357.
“This is an exciting milestone for Workspace and an acceleration of our existing growth plans,” said Workspace CEO Graham Clemett.
“The acquisition of McKay will enable us to capture more of the strong demand we are seeing from SMEs for high quality flexible office space by adding to our portfolio a further seven London office buildings in great locations for our customers, and a footprint in the Southeast where we see a good opportunity to test the broader demand for our flexible offer.”
“McKay’s attractive, liquid portfolio of industrial and logistics assets will provide additional options for value creation for our shareholders. As our recent trading performance demonstrates, our offer is resonating with SMEs and our strategy is working. We are confident about our future growth potential.”
Workspace shares were down 3.8% to 617.7p in late afternoon trading on Friday.
