Secure Income REIT (SIR) has announced the sale of Madame Tussauds to Fubon Life Insurance of Taiwan for £332.5m, with completion expected in the third quarter of this year. The contract price represents a near 8 per cent premium to the property valuation at the end of 2014 of £309.3m, and the proceeds will be used in part to reduce debt, which, at the end of December, stood at £1.13bn. Explaining the decision to sell, chairman Martin Moore said that having such a large single property (19 per cent of the portfolio) was unbalancing the spread of assets.
The new owners will inherit a 27-year lease, with an option to extend by up to another 70 years on expiry. The current rent payable on the property is £15.7m a year, and the lease provides for uncapped, upward only annual rent reviews throughout the term and geared to the retail prices index.
Secure Income floated on Aim just under a year ago, and has two key tenants: Merlin Entertainments, which leases Thorpe Park and Alton Towers; and Ramsay Healthcare, one of the five largest private hospital groups in the world.
