CBRE tops industrial league table

CBRE dislodged Knight Frank to top the Radius Data Exchange industrial league table for the second half of 2020. At more than 8.9 m sq ft, the national agent worked on the most space during the period, beating second-placed Colliers International to the summit by a whopping 2.4m sq ft. CBRE’s surge saw it rise from second position at 2020’s halfway point. The agency acted on some of the biggest transactions of H2, including the 694,000 sq ft deal for DHL at SEGRO’s East Midlands Gateway. However, the accolade for largest transaction of H2 goes to Colliers for Amazon’s 2.3 m sq ft deal at Symmetry Park, Swindon. CBRE’s dominance is reflected in how many individual transactions it advised on (137), bested only by stellar performances from JLL (211) and the winner of Radius’ H1 industrial league table, Knight Frank (184). Compared with the opening six months of 2020, overall space taken jumped by 28% to 54.3 m sq ft, while the number of transactions completed shot up by 50% – the sector has benefitted from unmatched levels of e-commerce activity during the pandemic, take-up breaking all records in the final quarters of the year. This increase in demand, especially for large grade-A units, will see steady growth in rental values into next year, compounded by the relative under-supply of stock in the market. Shorter-term factors such as logistics warehouse facilities for vaccine roll-outs and Brexit nearshoring have also contributed to the heady uptake in industrial space. The West Midlands and South East lead the way in terms of regional take-up, making up a third of the total for H2 2020, the South West and North East being the winners in terms of largest percentage uplifts from the first half of the year. Yorkshire & Humberside was the only region to experience a fall in take-up from the previous half, although this was in part due to a bumper H1, and the drop was just take-up returning to an expected level for H2.   View the latest deals being doneby Radius Data Exchange contributors in EG’s On-demand Rankings To send feedback, e-mail james.child@egi.co.uk or tweet @JamesChildEG or @estatesgazette