U.K.-based Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has sold its 9-acre embassy site in Bangkok to a joint-venture consortium of Hongkong Land for £420 million ($595 million).
This is the biggest land deal in Thai history and the FCO’s biggest ever sale. The proceeds will be reinvested in the FCO’s overseas estate and will fund 30-40 modernization projects around the world that are necessary for security or health and safety reasons.
The existing embassy building, which dated from the 1920s, required a significant upgrade and refurbishment to make it fit-for-purpose for a modern working environment, with large parts of the embassy building no longer usable.
The sale is part of the FCO’s continual review of its global estate, which is designed to ensure the maintenance of a world-class platform from which to promote U.K. interests, and also deliver value to the British taxpayer.
Hongkong Land is a part of the Jardine Matheson group, and Central Group, the Thai family-owned real estate and retail conglomerate
