Great Portland sells £266.5m building to Dubai investors
A MAJOR office building in south London has been sold to Dubai-based investors for £266.5m, as foreign buyers’ appetite for real estate in the capital shows no signs of slowing.
The building, at 240 Blackfriars Road in Southwark, was constructed in 2014 by the Great Ropemaker Partnership, a joint venture between Great Portland Estates (GPE), the listed property company, and Ropemaker Properties, the property arm of BP’S pension fund.
Great Portland said the price paid by Wolfe Asset Management (WAML), owned by the Al Gurg family, which also owns the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group, the Dubai-based conglomerate, was slightly ahead of the building’s value in September.
The office building is let to companies including UBM, the publishing group, and Boodle Hatfield, the law firm, and there are also cafés on the ground floor.
The sale includes a small adjoining retail and residential building called Cubitt House. Toby Courtauld, chief executive of GPE, said the sale was “the culmination of an exceptional development project”.
“The sale continues our strategy of recycling capital out of assets where we have created value,” he said.
Great Portland Estates has sold a number of properties over the last four years in order to strengthen its balance sheet, and still has more than £100m worth of stock on the market.
Abdulla Al Gurg, group general manager of WAML, said buying the building “perfectly fits within our strategy of owning best-in-class commercial buildings in prominent London locations”.
Research from Savills released yesterday showed that investment in property in the City of London is set to reach record highs this year as foreign investors are drawn in by the weaker pound and the relative stability of the UK market.
Earlier this year London’s “Walkietalkie” skyscraper sold for a record £1.3bn to Hong Kong investors, while the nearby “Cheesegrater” building sold for £1.1bn to a Chinese buyer.