Hansteen raises £150m to go bargain-hunting

Hansteen wants to raise £150m to buy cheap industrial sites in the UK and Germany. This is nothing new: the industrial Real Estate Investment Trust bought £460m of assets in this very depressed sector last year - in some cases for less than half the sum the seller paid during the boom years. Joint chief executive Ian Watson says banks’ desire to clear up bad debts was the main driver of those transactions, and he sees no end to that trend yet. The only snag is that bargains are only available to those with their own equity - hence the group’s plan to issue more stock.