Nuveen has agreed to sell the Can of Ham office building at 70 St Mary Axe in the City for about £340M in a deal that highlights improving sentiment in the London office investment market.

Capreon, the investment company of the Noé family, has teamed up with alternative investment manager Hayfin Capital Management to buy the 300K SF building, Green Street News reported.

The price represents a yield of about 5.6% and is above the £330M Blackstone had agreed to pay for the building in March. Nuveen ultimately pulled out of that deal, figuring that the market would improve.

The deal would be the largest sale of a London office building in the past three years. Investors are increasingly keen to buy quality London offices that were leased up three to five years ago because of the prospects for strong rental growth.

Average rents at the Can of Ham are about £68 per SF, Green Street reported, with the building fully let to 13 tenants on leases with an average of five years to first break.

The lack of new supply coming through in most areas of London means rents have climbed dramatically in the past two years. Even Grade B rents have reached £75 per SF, data from Devono showed, implying there is room for rents at a newer building like the Can of Ham to climb.

This is Capreon’s second London office purchase in the past year. It bought 132 Goswell Road in Farringdon in 2024.

Hayfin is not a typical London office buyer. It is a credit specialist, and when it has invested in property, it has been in sectors like distressed Spanish residential. But it joins the likes of Elliott Investment Management and Ares Management as an investor that typically seeks higher returns targeting London offices as a way of finding profits.