Paloma sells Amazon unit to growing urban logistics platform

Deal is second for EV-focused firm

• What Infinium has bought an Amazon warehouse in Banbury from Paloma
• Why EV charging points are provided on the site for delivery vehicles
• What next Infinium is aiming to crate a £500m portfolio of “FleetHubs”

Paloma Capital has sold an Amazon-let unit in Banbury to Infinium Logistics for the new last-mile platform’s second project, React News can reveal.

The 200,000 sq ft unit, as well as a long-let Starbucks drive thru, has been sold for £28m, a price reflecting a yield of 5.1%.

Infinium, which is “the world’s first dedicated EV fleet charging real estate fund”, was attracted to the opportunity as it provides a 588-space EV-ready fleet parking facility. It also said the 14.3 acre site had “further asset management potential”.

Paloma bought the asset in 2018 for £5m and subsequently invested a further £9m in the project, which involved refurbishing the warehouse and redeveloping an obsolete office on the adjoining factory site, releasing an additional four acres of land for the charging yard.

Earlier this week Paloma, alongside Partners Group, also bought a £17.6m portfolio of four assets from Marcol after expanding its debt facility with Wells Fargo, Aviva and Citi to more than £210m.  

Over the next two years Infinium is aiming to create a £500m portfolio of “FleetHubs”, which it describes as a “new sustainability-focused asset class which combines commercial real estate and low carbon energy infrastructure” to “drive efficiencies, create a better working environment for last-mile delivery service providers and combat climate change”.

“We not only devised an imaginative ‘low carbon’ re-purposing of the original building, but also ultimately ended up creating a substantial EV charging park, assisting Amazon with the de-carbonisation of its delivery fleet” JOE FROUD, PALOMA

Infinium’s first project is located in Swindon and it has an “extensive pipeline in advanced discussions… in key locations across Europe”. It is seeking brownfield sites of two acres within 10 minutes drivetime of major occupiers that have high quality grid connection or large capacity.

Infinium is backed by GreenPoint Partners, which this week completed its £305m purchase of an NCP car park portfolio from Davidson Kempner, with its own backing from Ivanhoe Cambridge, Greater Manchester Pension Fund and GCM Grosvenor. It intends to revamp most of the assets into EV-focused car parks.  

“Critical EV infrastructure”

Joe Froud, co-founder of Paloma, said: “When we acquired the site, the vendors had proposed a retail-led redevelopment of the whole site. We are really pleased to have not only devised an imaginative ‘low carbon’ re-purposing of the original building, but also ultimately ended up creating a substantial EV charging park, assisting Amazon with the de-carbonisation of its delivery fleet.”

Phil Bayliss, chief executive of Europe at Infinium, added: “This addition to our growing portfolio encapsulates Infinium Logistics’ ambitions to decarbonise, electrify and optimise the last mile delivery sector. This site provides critical EV infrastructure that will accelerate the transition away from ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles while also optimising and improving Amazon’s operations in the area.”

CBRE advised Paloma.