Landmark Estate Has Strong ESG Credentials

National law firm Irwin Mitchell’s Property Team has advised UK property investment and management platform Praxis to acquire Birmingham’s Brindleyplace in a share acquisition with Veld Capital, the private credit specialist investor. The acquisition price was £125m. The vendor was HSBC Alternative Investments.

Brindleyplace is a prime 14.9-acre business, culture and leisure destination next to the canal in Birmingham city centre. The commercial campus includes several office-led buildings and has more than 1m sq ft of office space, ground-floor retail, a retail arcade, art gallery, aquarium, leisure scheme, four-star hotel and multi-storey car park.

The campus benefited from significant capital investment under its previous ownership, and the new owner says it wants to continue investing “significant capital” to decarbonise the buildings. The estate is 90% occupied, with tenants including Deutsche Bank, Avison Young, Lloyds and Deloitte.

The Irwin Mitchell team was overall led by London property partner Ayesha Hasan, assisted by Delver Punia and supported by members of the wider national property team. Other members of the multi-disciplinary team included Adam Kaucher (Corporate partner), Robert Tunningley (Construction partner), Nicola Gooch (Planning partner), Paddy Sturman (Banking partner) and Kate Featherstone (Tax partner).

Expert Opinion

“We are very pleased to have advised Praxis on its acquisition of such a landmark estate. Brindleyplace is attractive to our client because it is income producing, has strong existing ESG credentials and decarbonisation potential.

"The deal involved a wide cross departmental team at Irwin Mitchell and illustrates our skills as multidisciplinary practice. It was successfully completed to deadline and is testament to our ability to meet our clients’ needs in a short timeframe, if needed.”
Ayesha Hasan, Irwin Mitchell partner

Agents on the deal were Gerald Eve advising the purchaser and JLL and Acre Capital Real Estate advised the vendor.