Taiwan’s third-largest insurance company Shin Kong Life has made its first real estate investment in London.
Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers has confirmed that it has sold 40 Gracechurch Street in the City of London for £136m (€187m).
Shin Kong Life told IPE Real Estate last July that it would make its debut investment in London as part of a $1bn international investment programme.
The deal makes Shin Kong the third Taiwanese insurance company to invest in London recently, following in the footsteps of its bigger rivals Cathay Life and Fubon Insurance.
Cornerstone, real estate arm of US insurer MassMutual, bought the building for an institutional investor in 2013 for £94m, £42m below the price paid by Shin Kong.
More than half of the 122,494sqft office building was vacant when Cornerstone bought it. In August this year, it became fully let when Hampden Capital took the fifth floor on a 10-year lease.
Darren Hutchinson, senior director of Cornerstone Europe, said: “This transaction marks the conclusion of what has been a very successful investment and represents our first full turnaround of a large scale London office asset.
“Having acquired the property just over two years ago, we transformed 40 Gracechurch Street from a half-empty and underperforming asset into a fully-let, prime institutional-quality City of London office, backed by strong covenants providing high quality income.”
Nick Pink, CIO of Cornerstone Europe, said: “We will continue to consider London opportunities together with those across Europe as we redeploy sales proceeds on behalf of our client.”
