Savills has submitted the 2014 sale of The Gherkin on 30 St Mary Axe in London to Safra Group as one of its top candidates for PropertyEU's Deal of the Decade Awards.
The sales price was sealed at around £720 mln (then €927 mln) and was viewed at the time as a new market peak for the City of London. The iconic office tower was acquired from its receivers and the sale marked the largest single-asset transaction in the City of London for 2014.
In its motivation, Savills said it was not easy to realise such a record-high price given the insolvent position of the seller, with no contractual representations or warranties and a foreign exchange mechanism of value.
Savills and Deloitte Real Estate, which jointly acted on behalf of the vendor, had to whittle down the vast number of interested parties to 'a handful of motivated and deliverable buyers'. In total, more than 400 parties expressed interest at the time in acquiring the building.
Over the summer, our project team will be urging other advisors and investors to submit their candidates ahead of a selection for the shortlist. The submissions will be announced in our daily newsletter during July and August ahead of a readers’ vote in the autumn. The Deal of the Decade Awards will be presented during a ceremony in Amsterdam in December.
Do you have a deal that you would like to submit for the Deal of the Decade Awards? For more information, go to: propertyeu.info/content/awards or mail irina@propertyeu.info
