Nursery World - 3.75m deal part of trend

A nursery chain has signed a 3.75m sale-and-leaseback deal on a state-of-the-art site.

Happy Times Nurseries and Childcare, which owns four nurseries in London, has undertaken a £2.4m refurbishment of its Fulham setting. Special features include a £200,000 lighting system that changes light frequency based on sensors on the outside of the building, allowing light inside the nursery to match the daylight outside, and a grassed central play area surrounded by activity rooms.

The PINE Fund, a Jersey-based unit trust, works by buying freeholds and leaseholds of nurseries and then renting them back to the operator on 15- to 35-year leases.

Alan Proto, one of the founding partners, said that he had concluded sale-and-leaseback deals worth £30m with 20 nurseries in the past 18 months and there were £15m more in the pipeline. Deals to date include large operators such as Busy Bees, Leapfrog and the Bertram Nursery Group as well as stand-alone settings and smaller local groups.

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