An update from Ediston Property Investment Company (EPIC) suggests it’s not just jaded commuters turning their backs on office life. Having operated as a generalist UK commercial property trust, Ediston will now turn its focus purely to investing in retail warehouses “for the foreseeable future”, following a review of its approach.
It should be stressed that this isn’t a sea change given that retail warehouses already made up some 70 per cent of the portfolio, and the move stems partly from a belief that such assets have become oversold despite good fundamentals. As Ediston’s board puts it: “Yields look attractive when compared to other property subsectors, often with income secured on high-quality companies.”
But this does offer an example of how trusts tend to evolve in line with investor demand and market conditions. Ediston will now focus even more closely on an area linked to the rise of e-commerce, while a plan to sell off the trust’s office assets will see it exit a subsector still facing great uncertainty amid the pandemic.