Life Science (LABS ) real estate investment trust (Reit) has deployed the £383m it raised at its over-subscribed launch six months ago with a deal to buy Oxford Technology Park.

The £120.3m acquisition is its seventh in the ‘Golden Triangle’ hotspots of Oxford, Cambridge and London since flotation last November, and follows the purchase of an £85m building in the capital’s ‘Knowledge Quarter’ around Kings Cross earlier this month.

AIM-listed LABS is the first UK investment company focused on life science properties including laboratories and data centres. Oxford Technology Park is a 450,000 square foot partly developed mixed-use space with 11 units complete and nine units to be built this year and next. It includes a hotel let to Premier Inn until 2045.

The Reit bought £33.8m of project debt and will provide up to £62.7m of forward funding to complete the buildout.

‘There is virtually no new supply of this type, size and quality of space in the Oxford catchment and we are delighted to have secured such an important and strategic asset of scale for our shareholders,’ said fund manager Simon Farnsworth of Ironstone Assert Management.

What LABS has bought

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Asset	Location	Cost (£m)	NIY (%)	Occupancy (%)	Wault (years)
Rolling Stock Yard	London St Pancras	77	4.4	76	7
Merrifield Centre	Cambridge	4.8	5.9	100	10
Lumen House	Oxford	7.1	4.4	100	1.5
Cambourne Business Park	Cambridge	38.7	5.6	83	5.4
Cambourne Business Park	Cambridge	50.1	5.5	77	5.7
Herbrand St	London	85	4.4	100	4.5
Oxford Technology Park	Oxford	120.3	n/a	n/a	n/a
Total/Average		383	4.8	86	5.6

Source: Liberum. Note: NIY is net initial yield; Wault = weighted average unexpired lease term

Liberum analyst Conor Finn said LABS had around £80m of capital left as it waited to fund the development of Oxford Technology Park. At launch, the company outlined a £445m pipeline, which included £220m of income-producing assets, £85m of forward funding opportunities and £140m of additional investments.

He said the portfolio offered asset management potential, given the unoccupied space at Rolling Stock Yard and Cambourne Business Park.

‘Given the pace of deployment, the company is likely to return to the market to raise additional capital in the near term,’ the analyst added.

At 101.7p at last night’s close, shares in the 3.9%-yielder, which pays dividends twice a year, stand at ‘par’, or Numis’ estimate of their net asset value. The stock has been fairly stable considering the market turbulence. From a listing price of 100p, the specialist property fund peaked at 105p in January and slid to a low of 98p in March after Russia invaded Ukraine.