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The company was founded under the name London Industrial in 1987 as a vehicle for the privatisation of the Greater London Council’s industrial property portfolio. Financed by a group of 12 investors, it acquired a portfolio of 18 industrial properties – 710,000 sq. ft. of floorspace – in Greater London.
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The Group floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1993. The following year it acquired a portfolio of industrial estates in the West Midlands.
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A major £80m purchase of 23 London properties from Tonex expanded the portfolio by 40%, including many of today’s flagship properties such as Metal Box Factory, The Biscuit Factory, Record Hall and Parkhall.
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Workspace sold its Midlands properties and decided to focus its expansion on London.
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A portfolio of properties totalling 1.2m sq. ft. was transferred to a joint venture with Glebe Developments for £146m.
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During the financial crisis, Workspace raised £81m via a rights issue in 2009 to strengthen our balance sheet and, later that year, the Glebe Joint Venture assets were repurchased for £15m in cash and £68m of stapled debt.
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A Joint Venture, the BlackRock Workspace Property Trust (BWPT), was established and seeded with an initial £35m of properties. Workspace had a 20.1% interest in the BWPT joint venture, which comprised eight properties.
A further rights issue raised £63m to accelerate the investment in our existing portfolio and to take advantage of attractive acquisitions.
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The Company terminated the successful Glebe Joint Venture for a cash payment of £30m.
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We disposed of the eight properties in the BWPT joint venture in May and June 2016 for £131m. Based on the strong performance achieved over the five-year life of the joint venture, Workspace received a performance fee from BWPT of £25m.
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Workspace bought three large business centres: Fitzroy Street in Fitzrovia; Salisbury House in Moorgate; and the Centro Buildings in Camden.
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Workspace purchased The Shepherds Building in Shepherd’s Bush.
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Workspace offers a three-month 50% rent reduction to customers following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Workspace bought Busworks in Islington, 104,000 sq ft, and The Old Dairy in Shoredtich, 57,000 sq ft.

Workspace purchased McKay Securities PLC, including seven well-located London properties, totalling 300,000 sq ft, including buildings in Aldgate and Wimbledon. The aquisition also included a footprint of more than 20 properties in the Southeast of England, totaling 1m sq ft of space.
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Workspace owns more than 5m sq. ft. of space across 77 properties in London and the South East, providing a home to over 4,000 of London's brightest businesses.