Rascals properties on the market

Rascals Childcare's four Hastings properties are on the market for a sale-and-lease-back arrangement.

Early-childhood education company Evolve Education Group has put its Rascals Childcare buildings on the market for a sale-and-lease-back.

The four 1920s-built properties are grouped together on Jervois St and Willowpark Rd and are for sale by tender, which closes on September 15.

Generating a combined $180,000, all have leases to 2020 with four five-year rights of renewal.

The three properties at 602 Jervois St, 903 Willowpark Rd and 905 Willowpark Rd back onto each other, enabling a shared playground for the toddler clientele. The property at 603 Jervois St is across the road.

Bayleys Hawke's Bay agent Daniel Moffitt said it was a unique offering. Normally property portfolios were bigger commercial or industrial properties, requiring corporate investors, so the Rascals offering could be attractive to smaller private investors.

"The reputation of the NZX-listed tenant, the cluster nature of the businesses operating from the locations, and the ongoing clientele for those businesses, make this one of the more interesting listings we have taken on in recent years," he said.

"Extensive remodelling of the original dwellings - including the installation of council-compliant bathroom facilities specifically catering for young children, along with opening up internal bedroom and lounge walls to create large open plan play areas - have seen these properties efficiently reconfigured into a new lease of life in a niche commercial sector."

The positioning of the properties meant they were worth far more as a portfolio than if they were sold individually, he said.

He said Evolve had strict criteria when acquiring new operators under its brand. Centres must be operating in purpose-built premises, must be licensed for up to 50 places with a 75 per cent occupancy rate, must have a minimum 10-year lease in place on the land and buildings, and must be making at least $150,000 profit per annum.

Set up in 2014 by Greg Kern and Russell Daly of Australia-based Kern Group, Evolve raised $132.3m in an NZX float to fund New Zealand acquisitions and promptly went on a buying spree that included Porse Group and other Hawke's Bay childcare businesses.