AP1, AP2 partnership with TIAA offloads London office

AP1 and AP2’s partnership with TIAA has sold a London office asset for £145m (€170.6m) to a Middle Eastern buyer.

The €4bn Cityhold Office Partnership, created last year and managed by TH Real Estate to target European core assets, sold The Peak building in an off-market deal at a net 4.27% yield.

Peter Neal, manager of the partnership’s UK portfolio at TH Real Estate, said the sale crystallised gains and provided additional capital for Cityhold’s 2017 London investment programme.

The 100,000 sqft building, near London’s Victoria station, includes office and retail space.  

The building is multi-let to tenants including Bank of Scotland, PetroChina and Guggenheim Capital. 

Abdulla Al Gurg, group general manager at WAML, said the building fit perfectly with WAML’s strategy of owning “best-in-class office buildings in prominent central London locations”.

The €4bn Cityhold this year paid £102.15m for the former headquarters of Great Portland Estates.

The asset, at 60 Great Portland Street, was traded at a 3.89% net initial yield.

TIAA and the Swedish buffer funds pooled their European real estate portfolios to create a €4bn joint venture in August last year, seeding the new entity with six properties managed by Cityhold, which operates as a wholly owned subsidiary.

TIAA holds a 50% stake in the portfolio, while AP1 and AP2 hold 25% each.