Tishman pays $517m for London office
Tishman Speyer has paid $516.6 million, or $1,565 per square foot, for 33 Holborn Circus, a nine-story office property in London. Savills represented the seller, Union Investment Real Estate. Tishman released an announcement of the acquisition on April 29.
The property serves as the headquarters of Sainsbury’s and is fully leased to the supermarket company through 2026. Sainsbury’s is the second-largest U.K. grocery retailer with more than 1,100 stores.
Completed in 2001, 33 Holborn was designed by Foster & Partners specifically as an international standard headquarters property. It features large floorplates, a gym and auditorium for tenant use, retail space, a restaurant, and underground parking.
DIFA, part of the Union Investment group, bought the asset for approximately $557.5 million in 2002. It was considered one of the firm’s biggest European investments outside Germany.
Also in London, DIFA with its joint venture partners Hines and CBRE Global Investors paid $402.7 million for Sixty London in February. And DIFA sold One Kingdom St. in London to Cityhold AB for $361.1 million in 2011.
On the Continent, DIFA acquired the ITO + SOM complex in the Zuid business district of Amsterdam from Commerz Real for around €244 million ($340 million) on behalf of its open-end real estate fund Unilmmo: Europa.
Tishman Speyer has been active in London since 1995, investing approximately $4.25 billion in 4.5 million square feet of properties over that time period.
According to data from Real Capital Analytics, 33 Holborn Circus is Tishamn’s first completed London-based acquisition this year. In the past three years, Tishman’s London activity includes the sale of Nexus Place to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, the sale of 1–2 Aldgate Place to Barratt Developments and British Land, and the sale of CAA House to Almacantar.
The London office sector has always attracted investors, and the past few quarters are no exception. Thus far during second quarter 2014, London’s office sector has had 29 completed deals totaling $2.69 billion. In the first quarter, London saw 70 completed deals totaling $6.9 billion, according to RCA, London’s highest quarterly sales figure completed to date.
