Almacantar buys London's Centre Point for £120m

Almacantar has exchanged contracts to buy the Centre Point tower in London's West End for around £120 mln (EUR 138 mln), well-informed market sources have told PropertyEU.

Almacantar, which was founded by Mike Hussey, the former London chief of Land Securities and Neil Jones, at former Continental Europe director at Grosvenor, has been in talks with administrators Deloitte since late last year for the acquisition of the 33-storey asset of two collapsed subsidiaries of Targetfollow. It is understood that the acquisition was financed using a small amount of debt provided by German bank Eurohypo.

The deal raises the total sales sum of Targetfollow assets to over £250 mln. Lloyds Banking Group is the main creditor of the two key Targetfollow subsidiaries, Targetfollow Property Holdings and Targetfollow Property Investment and Development, which went into administration in late 2010.

Deloitte was appointed in October 2010 as the administrator to the two subsidiaries, which held the company's properties.

In April last year Almacantar raised EUR 150 mln in its first closing, including EUR 100 mln invested by Exor, the investment arm of the Italian Agnelli family.

The company has also recently been selected by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to carry out a EUR 500 mln development of residential property along the Wellington Road.