– First acquisition is £29 million Brindleyplace office building in Birmingham –

Ergo Real Estate, a new value-add property company set up by Martin Jepson and Christopher Cope, has formed a partnership with NFU Mutual to invest £300 million in UK real estate.

The partnership, called Aver Property, will make value-add and opportunistic acquisitions of commercial property assets.

It will target investments in the London conurbation, the south east of England and other major UK conurbations. Individual investments are expected to range between £10 million and £50 million and provide the potential for income enhancement through skilled asset management and through capital value growth from repositioning and re-structuring of assets, leases and occupations and uses.

Richard Topps, Group Head of Property at NFU Mutual, said: “Our new joint venture with Ergo provides us with a very exciting opportunity at this point in the property cycle to add further diversification into our property funds through exposure to different types of assets and through managers with an undoubted track record and different expertise and experience”.

Aver Property’s first acquisition is 2 Brindleyplace, a prominent 78,000 sq ft office building on the Brindleyplace estate in Birmingham. The building was acquired from Hansainvest for £29.25 million, which reflects a net initial yield of 6.5%.

Originally constructed in 1997, 2 Brindleyplace is let to Lloyds Bank until March 2022 at a rent of £2 million a year.

Martin Jepson, co-founder of Ergo Real Estate, said: “2 Brindleyplace is a fantastic first acquisition for the partnership. It is a headquarters office building in an established office market, providing us with opportunities for asset enhancement and rental growth”.