the times | Thursday February 3 2022 41
Business
Calm has bought a healthcare tech-
nology specialist as the digital mind-
fulness platform increases efforts to
attract business from companies priori-
tising their employees’ mental health.
The British founders of the Califor-
nia-based group are to be joined by
David Ko, chief executive of Ripple
Health, after the takeover. The terms of
the deal were not disclosed.
Ko, previously an adviser to Calm,
will become co-chief executive along-
side Michael Acton Smith. Alex Tew,
the co-chief executive, will become
executive chairman.
Calm, founded in 2012 and valued at
$2 billion, has an app that offers medi-
tation, sleep stories and yoga sessions
that has been downloaded more than
100 million times amid a surge in
interest in such activities during the
pandemic. The group makes money
the Asian investors. Indeed, after its
disappointing outcome yesterday, it
aimed a few disgruntled barbs at the
Asian collective.
“Aristocrat understands that a
number of material investors who
have not engaged meaningfully about
their views on the recommended acqui-
sition account for the majority of votes
cast against, effectively blocking the
recommended acquisition,” it said. It
had taken “every possible step to
engage with this group of share-
holders”, even expressing a willingness
to “consider all options, including alter-
OLIVER DIXON/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKRipple effect gives extra
sense of Calm in takeover
Callum Jones
US Business Correspondent
from selling subscriptions to con-
sumers and employers. About 2,000
employers pay for Calm’s corporate
subscriptions. The company raised
$75 million at a valuation of $2 billion in
a private funding round in 2020.
Ripple Health, founded in 2019,
develops healthcare software. Its
products include an app designed to
help clinicians, patients and their
families to communicate and a tool for
caregivers.
“There is a global mental health crisis
and we need to provide more than the
Calm app alone,” Tew wrote on Twitter,
adding that Calm Health, its new ven-
ture aimed at employers, “will support
mental health across the full spectrum
of care”.
Acton-Smith told the CNBC news
network yesterday that expansion into
the healthcare sector “will allow us to
reach many, many more people and
make service available at different
price points”.Tom HowardGuy Hands is trying to head off a legal
battle with the Ministry of Defence by
offering to spend £105 million on mili-
tary homes that the government wants
to buy back.
Terra Firma, his private equity firm,
owns Annington Homes, which has
38,000 dwellings leased to the military
and has proposed creating a fund for
their refurbishment.
The offer, made in a letter to Ben
Wallace, the defence secretary, is con-
ditional on the government dropping
its enfranchisement case. Hands, his
investors and Annington hope that it
will be enough to prevent a “lengthy
and costly legal battle” that it promised
would follow should the government
pursue plans to forcibly buy back the
portfolio. People familiar with the min-
istry’s thinking said that Annington’s
offer was below what the government
spent annually on repairs and was a
fraction of the estate’s value.
The houses were sold off by Michael
Portillo, the defence secretary, to
Nomura, the Japanese bank, for
£1.7 billion in 1996, when the hous-
ing market was recovering from a
recession. They were leased back
to the government for 200 years.
Hands was part of that Nomura
team. He bought Annington from
his former employer for
£3.2 billion in 2012 on
behalf of American and
Middle Eastern inves-
tors. In the original
deal, the govern-
ment agreed to
foot the bill for re-Three warehouses close to Wembley
Stadium are the latest addition to
British Land’s campaign to become a
leading player in urban logistics.
The property company has paid
£157 million for the sheds in northwest
London, which at present are used by
Amazon, Euro Car Parts and a re-
cycling plant. Between them, the trio
pay £3.6 million a year in rent.
British Land plans to knock down the
buildings and replace them with a
multistorey delivery hub. It is under-
stood that they are due to be vacated by- As soon as the tenants have
moved out of the 12½-acre site, British
Land will demolish the warehouses and
begin work on the new facility.
The hub inside the M25 ring-road
will service west and central London,
where British Land said that supply was
“highly constrained”. Wembley’s road
and rail links were “essential” for the
last-mile logistics groups that the land-
lord hopes to attract, it added.
“This acquisition is another example
of the strong progress we are making...
towards addressing the chronic short-
age of urban logistics space in central
London,” Simon Carter, 46, chief exec-
utive of British Land, said. “Wembley is
ideally located for vehicles coming into
Wembley logistics hub takes
British Land nearer its goal
London and subsequently out for
delivery, with excellent access to afflu-
ent parts of the capital.”
British Land, founded in 1856 , has
grown into one of the country’s biggest
landlords. It is listed on the FTSE 100
index and runs a £13 billion portfolio of
mainly offices and shops, including the
Meadowhall shopping centre in
Sheffield. It also owns office campuses
such as Regent’s Place in London,
where Facebook is a tenant.
In the past its portfolio has beendominated by retail and office assets,
but Carter, who took charge just over a
year ago, has made clear that he likes
inner-city logistics hubs, too. However,
with so little space on which to build big
new sheds, British Land has had to get
creative. Last summer, it bought a car
park under Finsbury Square in the City,
which it plans to convert into a delivery
depot. It also has bought sites with re-
development potential in Enfield in
north London and Thurrock in Essex.
From almost a standing start a coupleof years ago, the group now has a pipe-
line of urban logistics assets worth
more than £1 billion. Over the longer
term, it expects that delivery and
fulfilment will become a “material” part
of the business.
“The [Wembley] acquisition is
another example of British Land’s
progress in its strategy of delivering
new urban logistics space through the
intensification and repurposing of
existing buildings,” Colm Lauder, a real
estate analyst at Goodbody, said.
Matthew Saperia, a property analyst
at Peel Hunt, said that the Wembley
deal was “another step in the right
direction for the company’s renewed
strategy”.
British Land is not alone in trying to
gain a foothold in the urban logistics
space. Rival property groups are scram-
bling to buy up whatever inner-city
land they can that might prove a suita-
ble site for a delivery depot.
The expectation is that values and
rents of such assets will continue to rise
in future amid a lack of available space
and growing demand, as consumers
increasingly expect to have their gro-
ceries and other orders delivered as
quickly as possible.
British Land shares rose 2p, or 0.4 per
cent, to 547½p, valuing the business at
about £5 billion.Tom HowardHands’ housing revamp
fund aims to satisfy MoD
pairs and in return Annington dis-
counted the rent — taking about half of
the going rate.
The government pays about
£180 million a year in rent to Annington
and spends £140 million a year on re-
pairs and maintenance. Annington has
claimed that some of the houses have
been “allowed to reach appalling condi-
tions” and that its contribution would
“improve standards in over 30,000 ser-
vice family homes”. It estimates that
about 7,200 of the military homes and
flats that it owns are vacant, but for
which the MoD still pays £36.6 million
a year in rent.
The money Annington is offering
would be spent over three years on new
kitchens and bathrooms, as well as up-
graded insulation and heating.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke, chair-
woman of Annington, said: “Too many
service families are forced to tolerate
sub-standard living conditions after
failings by the Defence Infrastructure
Organisation to maintain their homes.
The money the government intends to
spend on misguided attempts to en-
franchise Annington properties
is far better spent on desperate-
ly needed improvements to
these service homes. We are
offering to put this right as we
believe that our service person-
nel deserve better.”
The ministry
said: “We believe
our approach of-
fers a significant
opportunity to
deliver value
for money for
the taxpayer
and increase
our flexibility
in meeting the
need of service
families and gov-
ernment goals.”London to be
a magnet for
overseas cash
Tom HowardInvestors from around the world are
expected to spend £60 billion on
London offices over the next five years,
in a post-Brexit, post-pandemic vote of
confidence in the capital.
American property investors will be
the most acquisitive, Knight Frank says
in its latest London Report. They will
pour £15 billion into London offices
between now and 2027, the property
agent estimates. Funds from Germany,
China, Singapore and South Korea are
also expected to be active.
Overseas investors are expected to
target the capital’s office market partly
because of the better yields on offer
compared with other big cities.
Demand from foreign buyers has
been quiet for a couple of years because
of travel restrictions, but the reopening
of borders is likely to lead to “pent-up
demand being released”. Knight Frank
says that the main attraction is the large
number of office blocks in London that
meet the highest environmental and
sustainability standards. There are
1,100 such offices. This appeals to
property investors looking to “future-
proof” their portfolios.
However, Shabab Qadar, London
research partner at Knight Frank,
expects some investors to buy older,
cheaper office blocks, of which there
are many more, and renovate them.
“We expect investors to increasingly
seek repurposing opportunities within
the secondary market, targeting the
double-digit green rental and sales
premium available,” he said.
Knight Frank estimates that London
offices will attract £10.5 billion of global
capital investment in 2022, with half of
that amount already under offer. That
is expected to rise in the next five years,
reaching nearly £14 billion in 2027.nate transaction structures” to get
them onside.
The frustration of Trevor Coker, the
Aristocrat chief executive, was
palpable. Expressing his disappoint-
ment, he said that “developments since
the announcement of our offer have
been highly unusual and largely be-
yond Aristocrat’s control”.
One banker said: “Aristocrat may
want to have a pop at buying Playtech’s
B2B division, but why go through it all
again when the Asian investors haven’t
actually said what they want? In fact,
they haven’t said anything at all.”w
wThe Terra Firma
boss Guy Hands
paid £3.2 billion
for Annington
Homes in 2012£1bn
Value of British Land’s logistics assets
Source: British Landamid opposition from Asian investors including Karen Lo and Stanley Choi
TT