(August 12, 2013) — The Strathclyde Pension Fund has been granted permission to turn a former basement of a high street retailer into a restaurant.
The £13 billion pension fund’s plans were revealed on the Oxford Times, after the local council granted its request to convert the basement underneath a JJB sports store.
A Strathclyde spokesman told aiCIO the deal was being managed through property investment specialists DTZ, which acts on behalf of the pension fund to find the best local opportunities.
aiCIO was unable to reach anyone at DTZ at the time of publication, but it’s clear the investment firm believes in the UK commercial property story, following its publication of report into the sector last month.
In July, DTZ found the UK was one of the most attractive markets in Europe, with 17 of the 20 European markets covered by the DTZ Fair Value Index being rated as “hot”.
All UK regional office markets are rated as hot, making them attractively priced for investors, with several other locations, such as Manchester and the Heathrow industrial estate ranking as “warm”. Only London’s west end was determined to be “cold” and poor value.
Richard Yorke, head of UK research at DTZ said in the report: “UK markets remain undervalued, currently -8%, compared to -10% last quarter, and there have been few changes in Fair Value classifications as a result.”
The full DTZ report on the state of the UK property sector can be found here.
Strathclyde’s latest investment report, published in July 2013, stated the year’s investment performance reached 14.5%.
The pension fund is well known for its investments into property. According to its annual report, it currently invests £832,032 in property, equivalent to around 6% of its portfolio.
Its property assets returned 4.4% in the year 2011/2012, up 3% on the previous 12 months.
Among the assets it invests in are Villiers St in London, Northgate Quarter in Oxford, and 1-3 Royal Exchange in the capital, as well as several overseas properties, including the Nexus Building in Hong Kong.
Strathclyde also holds a £100 million option to invest in the Pension Infrastructure Platform, a collective investment platform generated by the Pension Protection Fund and the National Association of Pension Funds designed to make it easier for UK funds to invest in infrastructure.
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