Stenham sells London building to Aegon for £40m

UK investor Stenham Property has completed the sale of London's 52 Grosvenor Gardens office building for over £40 mln (EUR 45 mln) just nine months after acquiring it from Grosvenor Estates for £25 mln. According to a Stenham spokesperson, the property was sold to the asset management arm of Dutch insurance group Aegon.

Stenham purchased the 93,000 sq ft (8,640 m2) leasehold mixed-use property in Victoria, London in May last year and placed it under offer in December. At acquisition the building had around 40,000 sq ft of office space vacant and a further 10,000 sq ft where leases were due to expire in 2009. The London-based property company said that it successfully renewed all leases over the past months, fully refurbished the property and added five new occupiers including MWB and Capital & Regional.

Andy Taylor, head of UK Property, noted that the property is now 'fully let with secure income until 2013'.

'Our achievements with this particular property demonstrate our prowess for investing in properties where real value can be added through an active asset management strategy. Indeed, this is our current strategy for commercial property acquisition at this time,' said Paul Arenson, managing director of Stenham Property.

Last autumn, Stenham launched its UK4 Commercial Property Fund to take advantage of opportunities in the UK property market. The company has around £2 bn of assets under management mostly in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Japan.