Transport for London HQ Sold for £97 Million

Telegraph - August 10, 2010

Pier Walk, which is located next to The O2, has been purchased by Deka, Germany's largest open-ended property fund manager.

TfL moved into the building last August on a 20-year term at £29 per sq ft. The organisation and its 1,800 employees that occupy the office are unaffected by the deal.

Quintain owns the office building with joint venture partner Lend Lease and said it would seek to reinvest the proceeds from the sale into "alternative opportunities with higher potential for value creation".

The company is leading a regeneration of the Greenwich Peninsula and the area surrounding Wembley Stadium in North London. Over the next three years Quintain, which bolstered its balance sheet with a £183m rights issue last year, aims to double assets under management to £2bn and complete the Western part of Wembley City.

The deal for Pier Walk has been struck at 6pc above the last valuation on March 31, providing evidence that a recovery in the commercial property market over the past year can be maintained, despite fears that economic uncertainty may be dampening investor demand.
Figures from property agent CB Richard Ellis published last week showed growth in UK commercial capital values slowed from 0.6pc to 0.4pc in July.

Deka, which has a UK portfolio worth in excess of £1.5bn, said the deal "confirms Deka's commitment to the UK market".

Adrian Wyatt, chief executive of Quintain, added: "This sale achieves three things for Quintain. It fulfils one of our key milestones for the financial year, which together are designed to move the company substantially closer to the achievement of our 2013 business plan. It demonstrates in a difficult market the strength of the independent valuation of our assets at Greenwich Peninsula, and, finally, it enables us to realise the value we have created within the asset and recycle resources into other opportunities with potential for higher returns."

Harm Meijer, property analyst at JP Morgan, said the sale, agreed at a yield of 5.9pc, was "good news" for the company.

Quintain and Lend Lease will retain control of seven retail assets on the ground floor of the building.

Quintain was advised by Savills. Deka's advisers are CB Richard Ellis and Savills. Sphere: Related Content