Iroko Zen has made its third investment in the Irish property market, paying €12.2 million for Block P1 at Dublin’s Eastpoint Business Park.
News of the deal comes just one week after The Irish Times reported on the French investor’s €8.49 million acquisition of a portfolio of five buildings let and occupied as branch premises by Bank of Ireland in counties Wexford, Longford, Tipperary, Cork, and Galway.
The company’s first investment here took place in June, and saw it paying €10.14 million for White Pines, a newly-built and fully let retail scheme developed by Ardstone in south Dublin. Located on Stocking Avenue in Rathfarnham, the development comprises a purpose-built supermarket fully let to Tesco Ireland Limited and a creche building let to Safari Childcare Limited.
Iroko ZEN’s latest purchase at Eastpoint Business Park, meanwhile, comprises a modern office block comprising 3,900sq m (41,979sq ft) of space distributed across three storeys, along with 61 car-parking spaces. Developed in 1999, the building is 77 per cent let to three tenants. The tenant line-up currently includes Tedcastles Oil Products, cloud computing and virtualisation technology company Citrix Systems International, and IQVIA, a global provider of advanced analytics and human data science technology.
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Iroko Zen will also benefit from a two-year rental guarantee for an area of 879sq m (9,461sq ft) which is currently being marketed for rental. The €12.2 million paid for Block P1 represents a capital value of about €290 per sq ft provides the company with a net initial yield of 8.98 per cent. The yield tightens to 7.15 per cent once the rental guarantee is excluded.
The sale of Block P1 comes just over 11 months after the disposal by agent Knight Frank of the adjacent Block P2 to a UK-managed German fund for €15 million. While the 49,366sq ft (4,586sq m) building secured the equivalent of €303 per sq ft, this higher price was underpinned by its being fully let to Virgin Media on a 25-year full repairing and insuring lease from December 2000.
Located within a short distance of Dublin’s north docklands, Eastpoint extends across a total area of 40 hectares (98.84 acres) and is home to a range of global tech occupiers including Google, Oracle, Citrix and Fineos, as well as corporates such as Deutsche Bank and Enterprise Ireland.
Among the scheme’s attractions are its onsite facilities which include a crèche and its access to public transport. The park offers a dedicated shuttle bus service to both the Luas stop at Point Square and the Dart station at Clontarf Road.
Commenting on the sale of Block P1, Michele McGarry, head of capital markets at Colliers, said: “We are delighted to have concluded this acquisition on behalf of Iroko Zen. This high-yielding office investment, with excellent tenants, numerous asset-management opportunities, is located in what is arguably the city’s best out-of-town location, just 1km from the north docklands. Since its inception Eastpoint has consistently attracted blue-chip occupiers.”
