Qatar SWF puts London office on the market for €600m - report

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund QIA has reportedly put 1 Cabot Square in London's Canary Wharf on the market with a price tag of £450 mln (€600 mln).

According to a news report by the Estates Gazette, plunging oil prices have prompted the Qatari owner to look for a sale of the office asset, which currently houses the Canary Wharf home of Credit Suisse.

QIA bought the property in 2012 in a sale-and-leaseback transaction worth £330 mln.

With today’s oil price at $34.35 for a barrel, pressure to improve returns is mounting for investors from the Middle East and more disposals could follow.

Repatriating capital
Similarly, some Asian investors are trying to repatriate capital on account of instability in the Asian financial markets and as a result of currency depreciation versus the euro.

Malaysian pension fund Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (KWAP) is looking for a sale of the iconic Richard Rogers-designed office tower at 88 Wood Street in Central London, in an attempt to repatriate capital amid the country’s ailing stock and currency markets.

The Southeast Asia government retirement fund is seeking offers of £270 mln for the asset, which generates some £13 mln in rents a year and has a weighted average lease term of five years. ‘We are selling the property because we stand to benefit from real estate and foreign-currency gains,’ CEO Encik Wan Kamaruzaman told press reporters in December. ‘It’s also in line with the government call to repatriate gains back to invest in the domestic market.’

KWAP bought the 247,000 sq ft (23,000 m2) office scheme in 2013 from South Korea’s NPS for £215 mln. The tower is home to the likes of Mitsubishi, Hewlett Packard, Collins Stewart and National Australia Bank.

6 Bevis marks
Also in London, Axa Real Estate Investment Managers and BlackRock are looking to sell 6 Bevis Marks in the City of London’s insurance district for around £220 mln. The 160,000 sq ft office building was completed in the summer of 2014 after a £115 mln redevelopment project which lasted nearly four years.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Cheng family is believed to have put one of London’s most exclusive hotels up for sale with a price tag of £450 mln. The five-star Rosewood London hotel is being sold by the Cheng family’s investment firm, CTF Development, and is being marketed by Eastdil Secured on an invitation-only basis.