Harworth finally completes sale of Ansty land site
By Josh White
Date: Tuesday 24 Dec 2024
(Sharecast News) - Harworth Group, a UK-based specialist in regenerating land for sustainable development, announced the completion of the £53.5m sale of its 278-acre strategic land site in Ansty, Warwickshire, to Rugbyalpha Freeholdco on Tuesday.
The FTSE 250 company said the deal, originally agreed in December 2021, was contingent on the successful grant of hybrid planning permission, which had since been achieved.
It said the Ansty site, located near Junction 2 of the M6 with links to the M69, was acquired by Harworth in 2019, with additional land assembly completed over the following two years.
The sale price represented a premium to the site's book value as of 30 June.
Harworth said it planned to reinvest the proceeds into infrastructure and development projects within its 9.6 million square foot consented industrial and logistics pipeline, supporting its long-term growth strategy.
"The Ansty transaction demonstrates Harworth's specialist ability in creating value from strategic land assembly which, alongside the strength of our balance sheet, enables us to take a longer-term view and develop the right schemes for our sites," said chief executive officer Lynda Shillaw.
"Collaboration and partnership are key to unlocking schemes like this and we have worked closely with a number of different stakeholders on this project, including the purchaser since exchange of contracts, ultimately enabling us to accelerate delivery of the site.
"Our ability to identify and unlock significant value from strategic land is a key factor in Harworth's outperformance and we continue to identify and acquire strategic sites like Ansty to support our ambitious growth targets."
Shillaw said completing the Ansty deal last night, on the back of the Skelton Grange Plot 1 land sale to Microsoft last week, made for a "very merry Christmas" and marked the end of an "exciting year" for Harworth.
"I would like to say a huge thank you to my colleagues and stakeholders for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you on our operational progress in January."
At 0847 GMT, shares in Harworth Group were up 1.62% at 171.74p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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