IN Brief:
- The acquisition covers an 825,000 sq ft estate on a 54-acre site with 64 units across 17 buildings, plus a 6.7-acre plot consented for a further 150,000 sq ft.
- The estate sits beside Manchester Airport’s World Freight Terminal, linking multi-let industrial space directly to a major UK air cargo gateway.
- The deal underlines continued investor appetite for airport-adjacent logistics assets where income, occupier demand, and redevelopment potential sit together.
Chancerygate has acquired the World Freight Terminal estate at Manchester Airport from Columbia Threadneedle for an undisclosed sum, adding one of the North West’s most strategically placed multi-let logistics assets to its investment portfolio.
The estate totals 825,000 sq ft across 64 units in 17 buildings on a 54-acre site adjoining the airport boundary. It also includes a 6.7-acre development plot with planning consent for a further 150,000 sq ft of multi-let industrial space, giving the new owner immediate scale as well as a clear route to future expansion.
That combination is what makes the deal more than a straightforward property transaction. Manchester Airport’s World Freight Terminal sits alongside a cargo operation that handles more than 63,000 tonnes of air freight annually, supports over £6bn in non-EU trade, and hosts a dense cluster of freight forwarders, handlers, and logistics businesses. For occupiers, that means direct access to apron-side operations, motorway connectivity, and a site already configured around time-sensitive freight flows.
For Chancerygate, the acquisition fits neatly with a strategy that has increasingly focused on dominant regional multi-let industrial and urban logistics assets where there is both secure income and room to reposition or intensify estates over time. Airport-linked property adds another layer to that logic: demand is driven not only by general warehousing needs, but by freight handling, customs-related activity, specialist distribution, and businesses that need to stay close to airlines and cargo handlers.
The consented plot is likely to be central to that next phase. New industrial space next to established air cargo infrastructure is difficult to replicate, particularly in locations where planning, land availability, and transport access are already constrained. In practice, that gives Chancerygate the option to hold and manage an income-producing estate while also bringing forward new space into a market where well-located urban logistics stock remains tight.
The timing also reflects a broader shift in logistics property, where airport-adjacent estates are being valued not simply for warehousing square footage, but for operational relevance. As more supply chains are built around shorter lead times, higher-value freight, and mixed-mode distribution, estates like World Freight Terminal become harder to treat as secondary stock. They are increasingly core infrastructure in their own right, and the next stage of investment at Manchester is likely to be judged on how much additional throughput and occupier capacity it can unlock around that role.
