Japan's KDDI acquires £250m Docklands Inventory Estate with consented data centre plot

KDDI acquired the Inventory Estate from the LaSalle/Trilogy JV for ~£250 million, gaining a strategic campus adjacent to its Telehouse data centre cluster in east London. The existing office/education income (£16 million p.a.) provides current yield while the consented data centre and residential schemes offer long-term development value. The campus sits atop a major fibre connection point, underpinning the data centre use case. LaSalle and Trilogy purchased the campus from Criterion Capital in 2015 for £170 million, delivering significant returns on repositioning. KDDI (Japanese telecoms operator; parent of Telehouse, Europe's largest carrier-neutral data centre operator); LaSalle Investment Management (global real estate fund manager; seller); Trilogy Real Estate (UK real estate developer; seller); Knight Frank and Kauffmans (advisers to sellers). No external financing disclosed for the acquisition.