Accolade Park sold to Korean investors for £62m

The company that owns Accolade Park in Bristol, Europe’s largest wine warehouse, has sold the property’s freehold to a Korean investment firm for £62 million.

Accolade Park in Bristol is Europe’s largest wine warehouse

Keller Group plc, which had owned the freehold to the building which is leased by Accolade Wines, has sold the building to CSUK Holdings and CSUK1 Investments – a consortium of South Korean investors.

The group purchased the property in May of last year for the same price it was sold for, £62m. However this was £8m more than the £54m that it had been valued at on its balance sheet, according to Construction News. 

The warehouse, which was built in 2008, is features a vast complex of packaging bays, bottling lines, offices and distribution facilities totalling 872,000 sq ft on a site of 35.63 acres.

The purpose built property is let to Accolade Wines Limited on a contract that runs until 2034 at a passing rent of £4,250,000, which it uses to import, process, bottle and package wine for the UK market.

In 2016, the facility expanded to include a sixth bottling line allowing it to fill 1,200 bottles of wine every minute, tripling its output to produce around 600 million bottles every year, which represents one third of all wine consumed in Britain each year.

When it opened in January 2009 the state-of-the-art facility was able to fill a comparatively few 400 glass bottles every minute.

Nick Allan, investment partner at Cushman & Wakefield, who acted on the sale, said: “There was strong investor interest for the asset, which is a testament to Accolade’s award-winning operation, their investment in the facility, security of income and Bristol’s status as a strategic location for logistics and its employment base.”

The facility will continue to be leased by Accolade Wines, says Hugh Macdonald-Brown of Roebuck Asset Management, which has been appointed by the consortium of investors as its UK asset manager.

“Given Avonmouth is an established and continually improving logistics location and the warehouse is mission critical to Accolade Wines’ operation the investment provides an excellent opportunity to create value to both the investors and tenant,” he said.

“We are looking forward to working collaboratively with Accolade Wines and ensuring the overall efficiencies with the building can be significantly improved to assist with their longer term plans.”

Click here to read db’s 2012 profile of Accolade Park.