Libya has made its first investment in the London real estate market since the 1990s with the acquisition of an office property in the City of London district for £120 mln (EUR 134 mln). The 16,000-m[sup]2[/sup] asset at 14 Cornhill was sold by listed German property investor and developer IVG.
Libya has made its first investment in the London real estate market since the 1990s with the acquisition of an office property in the City of London district for £120 mln (EUR 134 mln). The 16,000-m2 asset at 14 Cornhill was sold by listed German property investor and developer IVG.
The former Lloyds Bank headquarters at 14 Cornhill has been renovated by IVG since it acquired it from Lloyds. The main tenant is Russian bank VTB. It is believed that the transaction volume reflected a yield in the region of 6%. The parties were not available for comment on Friday.
The Financial Times reported that the acquisition was carried out on behalf of Libya's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority. The fund was established in 2007 to invest the country's foreign reserves abroad. Libya was hampered for years by sanctions imposed due to the country's involvement in sponsoring terrorism, including the Lockerbie bombing. The sanctions were lifted gradually from the late 1990s as Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi engineered a rapprochement with the West.
