Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, now part of Aberdeen Asset Management, has put the office building at 11 Hanover Square in London's Mayfair district up for sale.
Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, now part of Aberdeen Asset Management, has put the office building at 11 Hanover Square in London's Mayfair district up for sale.
The property is being offered at a guide price of over £130 mln (€160 mln).
SWIP has hired H2SO to market the entire asset which is let to property adviser JLL at a current rent of £5.5 mln per annum. JLL’s lease on the 8,120 m2 building runs until 2017 at a current rent of £62.90 per sq ft which is well below the prevailing level for equivalent space in Mayfair.
The building is also expected to benefit from the scheduled opening of Crossrail in 2018.
'Freehold assets of this quality and scale are rare in Mayfair and the Hanover Square area will be among the major beneficiaries when Crossrail transforms transport infrastructure in a string of locations across central London,' commented John Olney of H2SO.
A sale of the building at £130 mln would reflect a net initial yield of 4% and a reversionary yield of 5.1% allowing for standard purchaser’s costs of 5.8%.
'We have taken the strategic decision to sell this prime office building and lock in the strong performance generated from the asset,' added Darryl Tidd, investment director in Aberdeen’s property team.
The asset is the latest in a string of high-profile properties to be put up for sale in London. Last week, asset manager JP Morgan put HSBC’s global headquarters in London's Canary Wharf on the market with a price tag of more than £1.1 bn (over €1.3 bn).
Also last week, London's Gherkin office tower was placed into receivership by its creditors, with accountancy firm Deloitte appointed as receivers.
The landmark asset on 30 St Mary Axe - an icon of London's financial district - is co-owned by Evans Randall and IVG, which bought the building in early 2007 for €950 mln.