Nursery World - Nursery group sells freeholds in £34m sale-and-leaseback deal

Property investor LXi REIT has acquired the freehold properties of 23 Just Childcare nurseries, now owned by Partou, and its parent company Kids Foundation.

Just Childcare has sold 23 of its freeholds to property investor LXi REIT

The off-market sale-and-leaseback acquisition cost £34 million.

Sale-and-leasebacks work by buying the freeholds of day nurseries and renting them back to the operator.

Partou, the largest Dutch nursery group, acquired Just Childcare earlier this year. Partou itself is part of Kids Foundation.

Set up in 2004, Just Childcare has grown to become one of the largest groups in the UK with 62 nurseries. The freeholds of 23 of these settings now been sold to LXi REIT, a real estate investment trust based in London.

The deal enables the group to keep these operating nurseries on 30-year leases, and is likely to fuel more acquisitions in the UK (see commentary below.)

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