One of the largest new office schemes to be completed in London in the last couple of years is close to being bought by an Asian investor.
An unnamed Asian investor has made an offer to buy Southbank Place next to Waterloo station from Almacantar for more than the £875M asking price, the Financial Times reports.
The deal would be one of the largest UK investment deals this year, in a London market where investment volumes have been subdued due to uncertainty over the outcome of Brexit. The £3.2B transacted in the first half of 2019 is a 64% decrease on the £9B sold in the same period in 2018, according to Avison Young.
Almacantar forward purchased Southbank Place for £550M in 2015 from Qatari Diar and Canary Wharf Group. A sale at £875M would represent a 59% increase on the price paid for the scheme.
It comprises two buildings totalling 572K SF. The 272K SF One Southbank Place was already pre-leased to Shell as an extension to its Shell Centre HQ. The 300K SF Two Southbank Place was not leased at the time Almacantar bought it, but in 2017 WeWork pre-leased 280K SF for what will be its largest office anywhere in the world, for now. Shell and WeWork took possession of the buildings last year.
Almacantar refinanced the scheme earlier this year with a £420M loan from Legal & General. It is part of a wider 1.5M SF of development with a total cost of £2.5B, which will also include more than 800 apartments across five buildings. The apartments are being built by Qatari Diar and Canary Wharf.
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