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Private equity firm Apollo Global Management is set to be repaid the full £315M it lent to developers of a luxury Mayfair residential scheme put into administration at the start of the year.
A report from administrators at Interpath, which was appointed to the company that owns 60 Curzon Street, said that its strategy was to sell the apartments that have not yet sold following its completion last summer. Depending on the timing and level of those sales, Apollo should be repaid in full, the report says.
60 Curzon Street comprises 32 luxury apartments in the middle of Mayfair, with a restaurant on the ground floor. The project is 70% owned by Chinese investors Citic Capital and Cindat Capital Management. UK investor Brockton Capital is the development manager.
The scheme was once valued at £600M, but the report says there was no certainty unsecured creditors or the project’s owners would see a return once the sales had been completed.
Delays to the project, particularly due to the effects of the pandemic, meant that costs increased, presales were not completed and post-completion sales were more difficult, according to the report.
Talks were ongoing at the end of last year about a recapitalisation of the scheme, but when no new finance was forthcoming, administrators were called in, the report says.
The site was previously the home of Marco Pierre White’s Mirabelle restaurant, as well as apartments owned by individual residents. It is in the heart of Mayfair.
Brockton took from 2007 to 2011 to buy 40 units in 21 different transactions before drawing up plans for an 18-unit apartment block. It had hoped to achieve sales prices of more than £6K per SF.
But in 2013, the Westminster Council asked it to increase the number of apartments in the scheme, delaying the development.
Brockton had always planned to bring in outside investors to complete the project. In 2015, it sold a 70% stake to Citic and Cindat at a price that valued the site at £200M.
Construction started in 2018 and had been scheduled to finish in 2020.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Brockton said that presales of more than £100M had been achieved.
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