Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us at short notice as we present this morning's announcement of our portfolio acquisition. We'll run you through this morning's announcement in a bit more detail. We have had to accelerate this materially given the leak over the weekend, so please forgive us if we're not as polished as we normally are, but we were keen to get as much information to the market as quickly as possible. I'd also just like to take this opportunity to thank the team who have worked through the night to deliver this, so I'll hand over to Colin to get things started.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm incredibly excited to announce this exceptional transaction: the acquisition of a carefully selected portfolio of high-quality urban logistics assets in key locations and attractive Big Box units for a total consideration of just over GBP 1 billion. This transaction enhances our integrated network of first-to-last-mile logistics assets in the U.K. As a natural progression of our strategy, the scale and breadth of our footprint means that we can offer clients the interconnected real estate space that they increasingly need in more locations, further strengthening our leading position in U.K. logistics. The portfolio that we're acquiring is highly complementary to our existing portfolio. It brings together the best of both worlds: a high-quality, well-located urban logistics portfolio with significant near-term rental reversion and additional asset management potential, plus high-specification Big Box assets that provide resilient long-term income.
So let me open by setting out why this transaction is so attractive for Tritax Big Box and its shareholders. The strategic and financial rationale of this transaction is compelling. Firstly, I must emphasize quality. We're acquiring an exceptional high-quality reversionary urban last-mile logistics portfolio in prime locations, which has been carefully curated over several years. This broadens our footprint in key micro locations across the South East and Midlands, markets underpinned by strong fundamentals. In addition, we're acquiring mission-critical Big Boxes, all of which are complementary to the stature of our existing high-caliber logistics portfolio. Put simply, we couldn't organically create a portfolio of this quality in these great locations and with the necessary scale at such a compelling price.
Key here is the current and future affordability of these assets to our clients, not just the current passing rents, but also the ERVs, which further complement our existing strong reversion. This provides significant rental growth headroom for the future, and Bjorn will cover this shortly. Secondly, the timing and pricing of this transaction are attractive because we're purchasing these assets at a level materially below their replacement cost, primarily reflecting the quality of their locations and the current cost of rebuilding them, and thirdly, this transaction delivers value for shareholders from day one. The acquisition is expected to deliver mid-single-digit EPS accretion in the first full year and be meaningfully accretive thereafter, supporting our ability to deliver sustainable earnings growth, and with a low EPRA cost ratio, top-line benefits of this acquisition efficiently convert into bottom-line earnings and dividend growth.
We have also identified meaningful active management opportunities to add value. Consequently, the portfolio's IRR is expected to be well above our cost of capital, enhancing total returns for shareholders, and finally, 40% of the consideration is being funded by the issue of new Big Box shares at a material premium to the prevailing share price. Moreover, we're pleased to welcome Blackstone, a world-leading real estate investor as a shareholder, noting that they will hold approximately 8.6% of our pro forma shares. In summary, this acquisition is an exceptional opportunity and is a natural and highly complementary extension of what Big Box already does best: driving performance through our three growth drivers, with a particular focus on accelerating income growth and delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for shareholders.
Turning to the transaction structure, we're acquiring 41 properties comprising 409 units from Blackstone for a total consideration of just over GBP 1 billion, specifically GBP 635 million in cash and GBP 377 million in newly issued Big Box shares. The shares will be issued at a price of GBP 1.61 per share, which is approximately a 14% premium to the closing price on Friday. The cash element will be funded through a combination of existing resources and a new GBP 650 million short-term acquisition facility. Blackstone's confidence in the portfolio's reversionary potential is underlined by a GBP 20 million rental reversionary bridge acting as a partial bridge between the current passing rent and the reversionary rents. Their commitment is further demonstrated through a lock-up and standstill arrangement on their shareholding. Completion is expected in the coming days, with a formal announcement to follow.
Post-completion, Blackstone will own approximately 8.6% of Big Box, reflecting both their ongoing strong conviction in the U.K. logistics sector and confidence in the Tritax Big Box team's ability to deliver attractive shareholder returns. So let's look in more detail at the attractive market dynamics underpinning this acquisition. Firstly, the urban market dynamics. On the left, the urban logistics market is characterized by a broad and increasingly high-value occupier base. Demand is diverse across retail, manufacturing, logistics, and SMEs. Market dynamics are attractive. Competition for land in U.K. cities is intense, and the new development is constrained by planning and land availability. Vacancy remains low at approximately 10% across the outer South East and regional U.K. markets, with higher quality portfolios such as the one that we're acquiring today exhibiting overall lower vacancy rates.
We expect these factors to continue to support attractive levels of rental growth, with more than 4.5% per annum forecast between now and 2029. Looking then at the Big Box market dynamics, on the right, this transaction also complements our core Big Box portfolio. The Big Box market is underpinned by attractive long-term structural drivers of demand. And despite all of the external uncertainty, demand has proven to be very resilient, with an encouraging level of new requirements and high levels of renewals. The acquisition portfolio has been carefully selected to complement these strengths, combining the best of both markets and positioning the business to benefit from ongoing structural trends in U.K. logistics.
This transaction is fully aligned with our strategy and our growth drivers, which, as a reminder, are firstly capturing record rental reversion and active management, secondly expanding our flexible logistics development pipeline, and thirdly delivering exceptional returns through pre-let data center development. This acquisition is particularly compelling because it amplifies the first of these drivers. As I've outlined, the assets we're acquiring offer substantial near-term reversionary potential, located in markets with solid fundamentals and where our asset management expertise can unlock significant further value. This is not just about adding scale. It's about adding the right kind of scale, properties in the right locations with the right characteristics to drive long-term performance. So this acquisition is a natural progression in steadily increasing exposure to urban logistics that Big Box has been purposely and successfully undertaking over recent years.
It builds on the momentum established through the integration of UKCM and other targeted investment acquisitions. This has seen Big Box increase the urban weighting within the portfolio from 2% in 2022 to over 20% through this transaction. In an increasingly polarized market, we are purposefully aligning the business in the two most compelling size brackets: mega box and small urban box. As well as enabling us to broaden our client offering, this deliberate strategy positions us well to deliver sustainable rental growth over the short, medium, and long terms. I'll now hand over to our investment director, Bjorn Hobart, who will run you through the portfolio in more detail. Bjorn.
Thank you, Colin, and good morning. Turning to slide seven, this portfolio is a particularly high-quality and complementary fit for the business. It's positioned to benefit directly from the attractive market dynamics outlined earlier. And this slide sets out the key details of the portfolio and how it fits with our existing stabilized assets. In particular, I'd like to highlight three characteristics which provide specific color on the rationale for this transaction. First, 28% reversion in the acquisition portfolio, including 38% within the urban assets. And the opportunity to capture the gap between average passing rents at approximately GBP 8.10 per sq ft to the current ERV of over GBP 10 per sq ft is extremely compelling, but critically remains affordable for clients. Second, at 5.9 years, the relatively near-term portfolio will enable us to capture much of this reversion within a few years.
And finally, there is a 28% overlap with the existing mix of clients in the current Big Box portfolio. And this will support operational efficiencies and facilitate the integration of the new assets and the new opportunity of wider occupier discussions, potentially enabling us to support more of our clients across more of their supply chain. And as with the current portfolio, the assets being acquired comprise a diverse mix of clients which carry out a variety of business activities which range from national, regional, and local businesses. The diversification provides appealing defensiveness and resilience. So in summary, this is a portfolio that directly complements the existing portfolio we have already curated and enhances our ability to deliver a wider choice of real estate solutions for clients while generating more opportunities for value creation for shareholders in the years ahead.
So turning to slide eight and looking in more detail at the acquisition portfolio details and the combined business. As you'll see on this slide, the acquisition increases our exposure to the key markets of the South East, the Midlands, and the North West. It also supplements our existing Big Box assets and meets our objective to increase our urban logistics exposure around essential city centers, bringing greater scale and efficiency to the platform. The enlarged portfolio will benefit from increased operational leverage, allowing us to drive rental growth and efficiencies across asset management, leasing, and client engagement. The acquisition also increases the weighting to open market reviews, which will enable us to capture the embedded reversion and drive rents forward.
With a greater number and frequency of lease events, we will have more opportunities not just to capture the gap between passing and ERV, but also actively manage the portfolio to drive further ERV growth and maximize income and value. The increased scale also enhances our ability to serve a broader range of clients' needs, supporting a diverse and resilient income profile. I'll now hand over to Petrina Austin, our Head of Asset Management, to walk you through some of the examples of how we intend to create further value to the portfolio.
Thank you, Bjorn, so let's now turn to an example that demonstrates that unlocking of value. This slide showcases the strategic advantages of creating integrated asset networks in key urban locations, such as our growing presence in Birmingham. The acquisition portfolio includes several well-located assets in the city, complementing our existing Junction 6 scheme and our Big Box assets in the region. These assets are strategically positioned with prime industrial zones, providing us with a meaningful concentration of urban logistics units in a market characterized by good occupier demand and limited new supply. Creating this interconnected portfolio delivers multiple benefits. Prime locations underpin demand, reducing long-term vacancy risk and ensuring good occupier retention and take-up. Enhanced asset management opportunities from a higher concentration of assets, enabling us to drive operational efficiencies and economies of scale, thereby increasing earning potential.
Scalable client solutions stem from our broad property offering across major U.K. regional hubs. This allows us to meet evolving client operational needs, supporting them with the right space in the right place at the right time. Diversified occupier exposure from well-located urban assets attracting clients with advanced supply chain requirements, enhancing portfolio resilience and diversifying our client base. Accelerated rental reversion from the frequent lease events of this asset type, which enables us to capture near-term income potential through proactive asset management initiatives. In summary, creating interconnectivity in cities such as Birmingham exemplifies how we can optimize further value from the acquisition portfolio and deliver enhanced returns. Focusing further on Birmingham, this case study brings our extensive asset management capabilities to life, demonstrating the successful and comprehensive work undertaken by our team at our Junction 6 scheme in Birmingham, our first significant urban logistics asset acquisition in 2023.
Within just 12 months of acquisition, we increased contracted rent by 30% through multiple lease events. We also enhanced income security, improving WALT from 1.6 years to 6.9 years. In addition, ESG-related initiatives increased the efficiency of the assets, with a proportion of B-rated EPCs rising from just 14% to 47% since acquisition. So while this acquisition has a lot of rental reversion to go after, we are focusing on not just capturing ERVs, but growing them too through our own actions. We've got a great multidisciplinary asset management team, and it is this breadth and depth of expertise that we will apply to the acquired portfolio, ensuring we unlock its full potential for shareholders. With over 100 lease events scheduled by the end of 2026 alone, there really is much we're looking forward to doing.
I'll now hand over to Frankie to talk you through the financial benefits of the acquisition.
Thank you, Petrina, and good morning, everyone. So I'll now run you through the very attractive financial benefits of this transaction, starting with the enhancement in reversionary potential. First, on the left-hand side, the chart highlights in green the day-one contribution to passing rent from the portfolio of approximately GBP 53 million. We then step through the last reported Big Box rental reversion, plus the additional rental reversion added from the acquisition of nearly GBP 15 million. This gets us to the overall estimated rental value of the combined portfolio, which now sits at above GBP 450 million, which is over 27% ahead of the group's passing rent today.
The chart on the right then shows how we have the opportunity to capture a substantial portion of this additional reversion over the next few years via the proactive asset management initiatives explained by Petrina, with approximately 80% available for capture between now and the end of 2028. The uplift in embedded rental reversion clearly supplements our first growth driver, providing a strong foundation for future income growth. In addition, a key feature of this transaction is the GBP 20 million reversionary bridge provided by Blackstone, which acts as a bridge between the current passing rent and a substantial part of today's ERV across the portfolio's current occupier assets. As highlighted in the gold, this reversionary bridge reduces over the next three years as we capture the reversion and grow our passing rent.
The GBP 20 million of cash is under Big Box's control, and we will recognize its release within our adjusted earnings over the next three years on a reducing annual basis, bridging us through to the reversion capture. The combination of the net rental income and the reversionary bridge is expected to deliver a contribution to earnings of between GBP 66 and GBP 68 million per annum for the next three, four financial years, translating into an effective day-one running yield of over 6% for the portfolio. We deliberately maintain a strong and flexible balance sheet to enable us to move quickly to capture attractive opportunities in the market, such as this acquisition.
Alongside the new shares being issued at a 14% premium to our prevailing share price, and to finance the cash element of this transaction, we are putting in place a GBP 650 million acquisition facility, which has a term of up to 2.5 years. The pro forma loan-to-value ratio will be approximately 35% post-completion, albeit we have a clear plan to reduce this back towards 30% through targeting additional disposals of GBP 300 million over the next 12-18 months, and as you know, we have a strong track record in disposing assets in line with or above book values, with more than GBP 800 million of assets successfully sold over the last few years. The additional sales will be used to repay the acquisition facility over the short term, with any balance being turned out into the debt capital markets in due course.
Looking ahead and building on the previous slide on financing, the only change to our future guidance is therefore this additional GBP 300 million of selected disposals targeted over the next 12-18 months. This is incremental to the previous longer-term disposal guidance of GBP 250-350 million per annum highlighted at our half-year results in August. This should be considered a one-off action related to the acquisition to actively reduce our LTV towards the low 30s. It's in keeping with our financing strategy and will preserve balance sheet strength and future flexibility. This acquisition does not impact our other targets in terms of capital allocation to both our logistics development and data center development pipelines. So in conclusion, this acquisition delivers an attractive, effective day-one running yield of over 6%, which is extremely compelling from an earnings standpoint.
It is expected to enhance earnings by mid-single digits in the first four years post the acquisition. And we are confident that this portfolio has the ability to deliver IRRs, which are significantly ahead of our cost of capital. Our financial strength and funding options underpin our ability to deliver this transaction for shareholders, which, coupled with our other growth drivers, support our target of delivering superior risk-adjusted returns. The themes represented on this slide, including an ability to grow our future income, further operational flexibility, a significant earnings benefit, and a robust balance sheet, all contribute to our ability to deliver on our strategy and create future value for shareholders. And with that, I will hand you back to Colin to conclude.
Thank you, Frankie. Well, to close, I want to reiterate why we are so excited about this exceptional opportunity. We're acquiring a very high-quality portfolio of carefully selected urban logistics and Big Box assets in key locations. These assets have a significant amount of upside potential through rental reversion capture and applying our active asset management capabilities to them. We're acquiring them at a great price, materially below their replacement value, which marks an excellent entry point. And the combination of significant rental reversion and attractive entry price means that we're delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns to Big Box shareholders with mid-single digit EPS accretion and returns well ahead of our cost of capital. And finally, we welcome Blackstone, one of the world's most sophisticated real estate investors as a shareholder in the business.
Blackstone's ownership highlights their conviction in Big Box and our market-leading position, as well as their belief in our long-term strategy and outlook. With that, we will open up the lines for your questions. So I'll now hand over to Ian, who will explain the arrangements. Thank you.
Thanks, Colin. And so I think there's two ways to answer to address your questions to us. You can either type them in the Zoom Q&A function, or you can raise your hand, and we can unmute your line, and then you can sort of speak to the team and put your question to us that way. Just to begin, because we've had a few coming through on the web chat already, the first question from Rob James at BNP Paribas is, "GBP 300 million of disposals to get back to the low end of the LTV range. What kind of kit do you want to sell?
Shall I take that question? It's Bjorn speaking, so we're very fortunate that we have curated already an incredibly high-quality portfolio, and as we've proved from the start of 2023, we've disposed regularly in a very disciplined manner around GBP 800 million of disposals, so a proof point as to the liquidity of that portfolio. Now, all of our assets are always in a ready-for-sale state, so it gives us a great degree of flexibility on what we can sell and when we can sell it, and it will come as no surprise that we continually assess our portfolio on a relative basis, comparing assets with the other assets in the portfolio as to which we would like to sell at any point in time, but we can sell a combination. We can sell individual assets, as we have proved before.
So we're confident in being able to increase the cadence of that disposal program as and when we need.
Great. Thanks, Bjorn. The next question comes from Jonathan Jackson, who asks, "Do you have the management bandwidth to cope with the increased asset base? And were you planning to undertake this transaction in addition to Warehouse REIT if that deal had gone ahead?" And he's also asking about the timing of extra disposals, but I think we've answered that component.
Yeah, I'll take the reverse part of that, the end part of that, the end. It's Colin. No, it wouldn't have been in addition to the Warehouse REIT transaction. And Petrina, would you like to take the first part of that question in relation to resource?
Yes, thank you, Colin. Well, prior to the UKCM acquisition, we invested a lot of time and capability into our in-house modeling systems, linking in with both asset management and ESG data points to really rev up our analysis that we do on a lease-by-lease basis. So in essence, the success that we've had in integrating UKCM, which included additions to the team and widening the skill set across the team, has meant that that's been a great guinea pig for us to then be able to add to it for analysis and due diligence. We will be recruiting additional people into the team, and that recruitment is already in hand, just purely because of the volume of number of assets. But we are confident that the skill set, the technology, the systems that we have enables us to take on board this platform of assets very easily.
Great. Thanks, Petrina. I'm going to attempt to go to the phones, so I hope this works. I'm going to allow Paul May to talk, apparently, so I hope this button works. Paul, can you hear us?
I can, yeah. Sorry if there's any background noise here. I apologize for that. Just on the road at the moment. Quick couple of questions. Just checking, were any of these assets only these in the warehouse portfolio, or is this all entirely separate? Sorry, I apologize if you've already answered that. And then separately.
It's entirely separate, Paul.
Cool. Great, and then separately, is this a precursor to potentially future deals? I appreciate it's a billion. It's big. It's the first one, but Blackstone's got quite a lot of stuff it probably wants to sell over time, and there could be some more opportunities. Could this be a start of an ongoing relationship and more deals coming through the pipeline?
There's no preconceived expectation in that regard, Paul. This is a transaction which we've worked up independently of any other thought processes. We think it's an exceptional opportunity, both in terms of the quality of the assets, as we've mentioned, what it does for our business, but also building a relationship with Blackstone, who are incredibly knowledgeable and insightful in this market. And so the fact that they've chosen Tritax as their partner for this transaction is really, I think, an endorsement of our business. So in isolation is the short answer to your question.
Thanks. Just very last one. Did you cherry-pick the assets, or was it a portfolio that was being brought to you by Blackstone? Just wondering how the transaction came about.
It's a bit of both, Paul, so Blackstone has carefully assembled this portfolio over a period of a number of years. When we engaged with Blackstone to discuss the potential to acquire assets from them, we looked at a number of portfolios, and in negotiation with Blackstone, we selected what we felt was the best fit for our business in terms of quality and income profile, and so there was an element of cherry-picking from our side, but the hard work had been done by Blackstone in terms of the aggregation of those assets over a number of years. I think they've done a really, really good job because you couldn't go out and buy this portfolio today, and certainly, it would take you many years to assemble it if you tried to do it organically.
Great stuff. And sorry, just final one. Just to confirm on the earnings accretion, I think a couple of times it was mentioned earnings and a couple of times EPS. Just confirming it's EPS accretion you're talking about.
Colin, yeah, Paul, you're correct there. It is EPS accretive to the tune of mid-single digits in 2026.
Perfect. Thank you very much, guys.
Great. Thanks, Paul. Next question comes from Marc Mozzi. So I'll mute your line, Marc, and hopefully, you'll be able to ask a question.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Just trying to clarify, at least to me, exactly how this reversionary bridge works in practice. I'm trying to get. Your net initial yield, you're going to be capable to benefit from 2026. So I'm right to say, actually, you have GBP 20 million receiving cash. You're going to divide those GBP 20 million by three years, so that's going to be 6 point something per year. And you have this on 2025 and on 2026. And because you're doing this, that gives you the 6.4% net initial yield on 2026. That's number one, first question. And then from here, I get where your mid-single digit accretion on EPS comes from. And then my second question is, what's going to happen from 2028?
So when you're going to have effectively recognized those GBP 20 million over three years in your earnings, how things will have, what's going to happen in 2028? Are we going to see a drop in terms of earnings simply because you're going to be just at the same level? Or yeah, just let me know how. So that's my first question. Thank you.
Frankie, are you happy to take that one from Marc?
Yeah, let me try and speak to that. So correct, Marc, the GBP 20 million has been retained by Tritax Big Box. So we have that cash to effectively recognize over the next three financial years. It acts as a bridge. It accelerates the cash flows from effectively passing rent today to substantially the ERV level today. So we will recognize that on a decreasing basis over the next three years because in year one, obviously, it is the largest. The balance will reduce and reduce further in 2028. So it's a sliding scale in terms of its recognition.
Sorry, Frankie. I think we lost you a little bit there. Would you mind just recapping that last sentence?
Apologies. So it's a recognition over a sliding scale. The gap between passing rent and reversion is the largest in year one. As we capture that through the lease events that Petrina talked through, that gap will reduce in year two and year three further. So the recognition is not on a linear basis. We will be recognizing more of that GBP 20 million in year one, less in year two, and less again in year three. That gets us to a day one running yield of 6%, Marc. I think you quoted 6.4. 6.4 is the full reversionary yield. The effective running yield to us is 6% from day one. And as we get to the end of 2028, in effect, we have stepped in and captured that reversion through the lease events over the course of the next three years.
And therefore, we're expecting growth thereafter from the GBP 66 million-GBP 68 million that we're quoting as the contribution over the course of the next three years. So there is an ability to accelerate that. Obviously, we're expecting further market rental growth over that period. We have an ability to bring some of that capture forward through asset management initiatives. And of course, we can potentially eat into that vacancy that's there as well. So hopefully, that answers that, but feel free to follow up.
Thank you, Frankie. And just to add to that, the timing of this rather neatly dovetails with our expectation for data center income delivery from 2027 onwards and growing.
Okay. So if I understand you correctly, year one, your net initial yield is 6%. So that's GBP 62 million of net rental income. So you recognize about GBP 10 million or GBP 9.5 million of this GBP 20 million year one. Can we know what would it be in year two and year three, please?
Yeah, Marc. It's circa GBP 10, GBP 6-GBP 7 in year two, and then a balance of GBP 2-GBP 3 in the final year.
Superb. And if we were to assume that you're not capable to capture the rental reversion on your side, then we're going to have a drop in 28 of the earnings?
Yes. I mean, we've got full confidence in capturing that rental reversion, as has Blackstone by effectively providing the reversionary bridge. And of course, as I said, we're expecting further market rental growth over the course of these three financial years that we're talking about. So in actual fact, the actual capture should be ahead of the numbers that we've talked through.
So if I understand correctly, because I'm just struggling to understand why Blackstone gave you those GBP 20 million? So it's not for free, I guess. So you're going to pay down those GBP 20 million when you're going to capture the rental reversion? That the way I should understand it in terms of cash? So you get GBP 20 million year one, and then if you're capable to capture GBP 10 million, then you're going to give back those GBP 10 million to Blackstone, et cetera?
No, we don't give any back, Marc.
You're going to have double counting?
Yeah. We have the GBP 20 million, and we capture the reversionary rent progressively through the rent review profiles and lease renewals and lettings.
So that's going to be on top. So it's GBP 20 million, GBP 10 million year one, +GBP 3 million of rental reversion. So you're going to get GBP 13 million year one in your earnings. That the way I should understand it? I'm sorry. I'm slightly confused. I'm the first time in my career I see that.
Yeah. No, there's no double counting here, Marc. We try to guide to the contribution of net rental income plus the reversionary bridge in all three of the next three, four financial years resulting between GBP 66 and GBP 68 million. That's the way you should think about it. As the passing rent grows, the reversionary bridge reduces to effectively compensate the actual capture of that. So think of it as a bridge from a cash flow perspective to the year three net rental income.
Okay. Brilliant. I start to get it. Just for the sake of progressing on my question, your average cost of debt, the new marginal cost of debt you're going to get on your three and a half year debt, should we assume what, 4% + 80 bps ? It's something between the five years and the 10 years SONIA, or it's cheaper than that as an initial SONIA swap?
That's about right, Marc. Yeah, you're accurate in those numbers.
4% + 80 bp s. So 4.8% is the marginal cost of debt.
Correct.
Okay. Superb. And can I have just for my own culture, what are the top 10 tenants of this portfolio you're acquiring, or top five? And the concentration of those top five or top 10 if you have?
Bjorn, were you able to cover that? I think it was on one of the slides.
Yeah, I was just about to say, on slide seven, it highlights some of the key tenants and the overlap with the current Big Box portfolio. So you'll see the likes of Tesco's and Amazon and Argos/Sainsbury's, B&Q, DHL. But there's also then new additions to the portfolio and their clients that we're very familiar with and we've been engaging with on some of the development pipeline over the past few years. So that should give you color.
Thank you very much.
Great. Thanks, Marc.
Thanks very much indeed for your question. Next question comes from Marcus Phayre-Mudge. Marcus, hopefully, you can hear us and can ask a question. Marcus? Okay. We might move on from Marcus. Next question comes from Suraj Goyal, who I will.
Hi.
Suraj, do you want to go ahead?
Thanks . Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can, yeah.
Perfect. Just a quick one from me. Do you expect any synergies or operational benefits as you integrate these assets into your existing platform? I know you touched on some of the concepts earlier on, but I also wanted to just get an understanding of whether there are sort of the firm maintenance or CapEx requirements within the acquired portfolio as well that may be vastly different to your existing portfolio.
Well, they're quite granular, as we've already mentioned. So it's a very hands-on approach that we take to active asset management. So there's a lot of work to do, and we'll be taking that on with gusto . But Petrina, do you want to just talk about some of the operational synergistic benefits?
Yeah. Thank you, Colin. Just to stress, the sort of geographical concentration means that we'll be able to run contracts over a wider portfolio base within that particular location. So we will get economies of scale through the facilities management service contracts, which underpin the service charge budgets for each of the estates in the similar way that we get economies of scale and good coverage for our insurance, which we place. So there will be multiple benefits in having a larger portfolio with this smaller unit size in the same urban geographies.
Perfect. Thank you.
Great. Next question comes from the line of Chris Clothier, Chris, do you want to go ahead and ask your question, please?
Good morning. Hopefully, you can hear me.
We can. Hi, Chris.
Thank you. Two questions from me, please. The first is, I know that in the kind of large-scale asset space, that vacancy is sitting, I guess, nationwide at 7.1%. I was wondering if you could give some color as to what you think that means for rental growth for Big Box assets and what is the level of sort of speculative supply. My second question comes back to the 6% initial running yield on the acquisition. Is that at the cost that you're paying? And therefore, I guess that there would be an ever so slight enhancement from the fact that for existing shareholders, some of that cost is being financed by shares issued at a premium to the prevailing share price.
Thanks for the question, Chris. Henry, would you like to take the first part of the question, the market-oriented piece?
Yeah, certainly, Colin, so Henry Stratton, Head of Research, so that 7.1% vacancy has dropped to 6.9% in Q3, so a little bit of an improvement there, which is encouraging across the third quarter of this year with that recovery in demand we talked about at the mid-year, holding firm through the third quarter, just over 8 million sq ft left, so market fundamentals on the Big Box side, as we talked about, certainly stabilizing, looking like they're improving a little bit, and we're still seeing that rental growth coming through, and of course, this is supportive of that, and just on the spec side, again, we talked in the middle of the year about 7.5 million sq ft spec coming over the next year, and that number's held flat across Q3 as well, so this lower level of spec delivery that we've been expecting remains the case.
We're not seeing significant starts in the market at the moment, so we're still confident around those market fundamentals and the outlook for rental growth in the Big Box side of the market.
Thank you.
Frankie, you had to take in the second piece.
Indeed. And Chris, it's a very good point you make. The 6% initial running yield is quoted off of the headline GBP 1.035 billion. And of course, that's predicated off of the GBP 1.61 issue price on the equity portion of consideration. If you effectively apply the fair value of that, there will be a modest reduction in terms of that overall consideration. So yes, the running yield will be slightly enhanced in actual terms from the 6% that we've quoted this morning.
Thank you very much indeed. Apologies, sorry. Just before I go, just coming back on that vacancy point. So you spoke to, I mean, I think it's clear that rental growth ought to be reasonably strong in urban logistics. What do you expect rental growth to be over the sort of medium term in Big Box space, please?
Colin, shall I take that again?
Yes.
Chris, a couple of markets today this year, we talked sort of 3%-5% as a medium-term rental growth number in the market for Big Boxes. It looks like this year will come well within that range. On a multi-year basis, that's the sort of level that we see rents growing at, which of course is positive at the moment in relation to where inflation is. As we say, that reflects the strong dynamics of that market.
Thank you very much.
Great. So I've got a question from Marcus Phayre-Mudge via the chat. I didn't think the phone line was working, but he asks, "Economies of scale has been highlighted by management. This is an externally managed business, and part of shareholders' return is to benefit from these economies through a low management cost. Why is this not being reflected in additional fee tiering? And how big will the portfolio need to be to see the creation of another lower fee tier?
Yeah, thanks for the question, Marcus. Obviously, we've had this discussion before, and were this to be a Big Box portfolio, then in isolation, then that would undoubtedly be forefront in our minds. I think the fact of the matter is it is highly granular. As we've outlined, there are a lot of assets to manage here. That's going to require for us to do the best job that we can, and that is our objective. We want to extract full value for shareholders to maximize returns from this portfolio. It needs to be very hands-on in terms of management. That's boots on the ground. That's active engagement with all of our clients. That's improving the quality of the real estate assets, etc., etc., and we've discussed this with Blackstone, and Blackstone themselves believe that there's a lot of opportunity for us to extract in this portfolio.
One of the reasons why they're staying on are significant shareholders. So the simple fact of the matter is that when you're dealing with a portfolio of this granularity with this level of asset management, it's very difficult to achieve that with any significant savings. Now, this is something that we're going to obviously monitor as we build up. And that's something we can sort of look forward to discussing with you once we've bedded it down and got a feel for the level of workload involved. But we think it's going to be quite significant.
Great. Next question comes from Matt Norris, who asks, "How was the GBP 1.61 price determined for the GBP 375 million consideration share element?
Yeah, thanks, Matt. It was a point of commercial negotiation between the parties, obviously noting that our share price was moving around and we needed to fix a price that we felt was appropriate in the context of our last reported NAV per share, but also in the context of the prevailing share price and reflective of a number of other attributes of the transaction. And that was negotiated over a period of time. We believe that it's a very attractive deal for our shareholders, but it's also, I think this transaction is a good deal for Blackstone as well. So I think we do believe it's a true win-win situation in this deal. And obviously, a 14% premium to the last closing share price is a meaningful one.
Great. Next question from Robert Deane asks, "Are you expecting Moody's to upgrade to an A3 on the back of this?"
Frankie, it's probably one for you.
Yeah, I think it's too early to say that. Obviously, there will be a full consultation process with them now that the deal has been announced. And we will see where we end up. But there's sort of no answer on that I can give you as we sit here today. And probably.
It may be just worth mentioning, just to jump in there, that one of the things that Moody's has said to us in the past, that it recognizes the importance of diversified asset platforms. And clearly, this transaction will deliver increased diversification within our property asset pool that we're managing for shareholders. So I think that that will be a positive attribute that Moody's will take from the transaction.
Great. And probably one final question from Tom Furlong. "How will this acquisition impact your ability to make data centers a meaningful proportion of the rent roll? And will the dilution be offset with more data center announcements?
Yeah, thanks, Ian. I think I've sort of captured that. So look, this transaction isn't impacting on our strategic thinking and our ambitions regarding data centers. We've obviously made some clear announcements regarding the data center pipeline. Those are proceeding according to plan, and we're very pleased with that progress. And so what we've outlined to the market to date remains in our contemplation. But obviously, to the extent that the business grows in size, then proportionately, that data center pool that we've outlined would be a slightly smaller component part of the overall. But it remains a very important part of our future growth expectations. We're not, however, changing the name over the door. We are, first and foremost, a logistics-focused business. And we believe that what we've done within logistics has very close synergies with the data center market, as we've highlighted previously.
Great. Well, I think that's all the time we've got for questions. So I think we'll wrap things up.
Thanks, Ian. Well, from me, Colin Godfrey, it remains for me to say thank you very much for everyone joining the call today. By all means, if you have follow-up questions that you've been too shy to ask on the call, please do reach out to Ian or your broker. And we've been more than happy to follow up with you over the course of the coming days. But for the time being, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement for the business. We're really, really excited about this transaction. We think it's a fantastic step forward for our business. And we're looking forward to extracting value for you, the shareholders, from this transaction over the coming years. Have a good day. Thanks very much.