LaSalle Investment Management sells Maidenhead office asset to trading company the RO

By Nicky Godding

3 February 2022

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Family owned trading company, the RO, has acquired the freehold of 6 Bell Street, Maidenhead from LaSalle Investment Management for £4.5 million. The property is let to three blue chip tenants: Aspen Pharmacare; Profitero, the leading eCommerce performance analytics platform; and La-Z-Boy, the American furniture manufacturing business listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Located in Maidenhead’s town centre, the office building comprises 10,821 sq ft and is arranged over a ground floor and two upper floors, together with 43 parking spaces.

David Kershaw, Group Real Estate Director, the RO, said: “6 Bell Street is our first investment made following a tranche of recent disposals. It made sense for that investment to be in Maidenhead, a thriving town with a very active business community, which is also home to Maersk, FM Global, and Blackberry. The town has excellent access to central London, the M4 and M25 motorways, and Heathrow. Maidenhead is undergoing substantial regeneration with a number of ongoing projects in the town. However, it was the proximity to the train station which proved attractive for us particularly with the arrival of the Elizabeth Line later this year.

“As the owners of commercial buildings in and around the London commuter belt, we are seeing a significant increase in demand from businesses looking for quality office space in these areas, which also drove our decision to invest in Maidenhead. Hybrid working practices and a rejection of long daily commutes are trends which are pushing businesses and people away from central London and into places like Maidenhead, well known as a royal borough with a wonderful quality of life, and only a short distance away from London for days on which a meeting in the capital is still necessary. With substantial capital to deploy we are keen to secure more assets which, like 6 Bell Street, have solid fundamentals as well as asset management and development potential.”

The RO Group was advised by Osborne Clark and Gerald Eve. LaSalle Investment Management was advised by Mayer Brown and Kimmre.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.