Infrastructure

Home page

Infrastructure

Foreign investors increase interests in Londonâ€™s real estate

19 December 2011 10:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA-Economics. Hammerson Plc sold an eight-story office building in the City of London financial district to a company owned by the Kuwait government for 176 million pounds ($273 million), BusinessWeek reported.

St. Martins Property Investments Ltd. bought the building at 60 Threadneedle Street for 11 million pounds above its valuation on June 30, Hammerson, the U.K.â€™s third largest publicly traded property company, said today in a statement. The yield, or rent as a percentage of the purchase price, was about 4.75 percent.

Hammerson plans to use the proceeds â€œfor future refurbishment, development and acquisition opportunities,â€ Chief Executive Officer David Atkins said in the statement.

Overseas investors own 52 percent of the buildings in the City of London, compared with 50 percent in 2010 and 8 percent in 1980, according to a report commissioned by Development Securities Plc and published Nov. 22. Six percent of the districtâ€™s properties had Middle East owners prior to the Threadneedle Street deal, according to the report.

Tenants in the building include Talbot Underwriting, Universities Superannuation Scheme, Berenberg Bank and The Toronto Dominion Bank, Hammerson said.