Nexus REIT (NXR-UN-T) is pushing its recent industrial buying spree past the quarter-billion-dollar mark with two additional acquisitions, announced Tuesday in London, Ont., and Edmonton.

The two most recent properties will add about 496,000 square feet of gross leasable area to Nexus’ portfolio. They are the result of two separate agreements, and valued at a combined $56.1 million.

“The vendor of the London, Ont., property we have put under contract is the same vendor that we acquired six industrial properties from earlier this month,” said Nexus CEO Kelly Hanczyk in the announcement. “We are very excited to be working with this vendor on another deal and we hope that this relationship will lead to more properties being vended to the REIT in the future.

“The Edmonton property is a single-tenant property with solid tenancy. We have additional industrial properties in our acquisition pipeline and are well on our way to meet or exceed our stated near-term goal of increasing our industrial weighting to 75 per cent.”

Nexus makes $262M in recent acquisitions

In total, Nexus has acquired just over $262 million worth of industrial assets during the past few months and recently graduated to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange from the TSX Venture Exchange.

Management is moving the REIT toward ultimately becoming a pure-play industrial investor.

Hanczyk told RENX in a recent interview he expects Nexus to acquire between $300 and $350 million worth of industrial property this year and to buy between $100 and $300 million in assets annually in future years.

The purchase price for the two most recent acquisitions represents a weighted average going-in capitalization rate of six per cent, Nexus reports.

The REIT plans to fund the purchases with cash on hand, $28,500,000 of Class B LP Units to one of the vendors, assumed mortgage financing and new financing on one of the properties.

The London acquisition is expected to close Nov. 1 and the Edmonton acquisition on July 4.

The acquisitions are conditional on the REIT completing due diligence. Additionally, one of the transactions will require TSX and unitholder approval for the issuance of units of a subsidiary limited partnership of the REIT as partial purchase price consideration.

The Class B LP Units will be priced at $8.6278 per unit.

About Nexus REIT

Nexus owns a portfolio of 82 properties comprising approximately 5.7 million square feet of gross leasable area. The REIT has approximately 33,478,000 units issued and outstanding.

Additionally, there are Class B LP Units of subsidiary limited partnerships of Nexus issued and outstanding, which are convertible into approximately 6,195,000 units.