Cara Investment’s property arm has paid £71m (€85m) to buy the 7-10 Waterloo Place mixed-use building in London from Barings.

Barings – which acquired the 35,000sqft Grade II-listed property for £35m in 2014 and undertook an asset management initiative – said it has sold the asset, on behalf of an institutional investor, to Cara Real Estate. 

The purchase of 7-10 Waterloo Place is Cara’s second London acquisition. In 2018, the Frankfurt-based investor acquired 20 Soho Square, W1 for £117m.

Klaus Schupp, managing director at Cara Real Estate, said: “7-10 Waterloo Place is a fantastic addition to our generational portfolio and fits our long-term strategy of investing in high quality, trophy assets in leading global cities across Western Europe and the US.”

Darren Hutchinson, head of UK real estate transactions at Barings, said: “This sale marks the successful conclusion of our business plan at Waterloo Place to restore what is a truly special building in an enviable St. James’s location.

“By repositioning this asset we have been able to attract an outstanding tenant base on long leases while driving rental growth, which has enabled us to crystallise strong returns on behalf of our investors.”

Nick Pink, head of fund management – Europe at Barings, said: “We have undertaken a busy programme of sales in the UK over the last two years as business plans have come to fruition.

“With the UK and London now offering an interesting relative value proposition in a pan European context, we expect to be active on the buy side once again over the year ahead, with appetite from core to value-add.”

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