The private equity owner of Pinewood Studios has secured one of Mayfair’s biggest office deals of the year so far.
London-based asset manager Aermont Capital has bought the long leasehold to Bond Street House, W1, a prime block which contains the London offices of fashion house Chanel, for £150m.
Bond Street House sits on the corner of New Bond Street and Clifford Street and is being sold by Mark and Thor Equities. Aermont is understood to have bought the building for a private investor.
The block also houses the London flagship store of Patek Philippe, which occupies a 914 sq ft art deco-style salon space designed for customers to try on watches – by appointment only – on the ground floor.
Agents at RX London and Michael Elliott were appointed last year to market the property for £150m. That would represent a capital value of £4,955 per sq ft and a net initial yield of 4.38%.
The freeholder is the Pollen Estate, and the leasehold expires in 2125. It is held at a gearing of 25% of the rent.
The property contains a total of 30,273 sq ft, with most of the office segment having been refurbished in recent years. The building’s gross passing rent is £7.98m pa, or £85 per sq ft overall.
The Chanel and Patek Philippe leases make up more than two-thirds of the site’s income, while the building’s other retail boutique is let to luxury jeweller Hirsh. The stores face onto the only section of Bond Street which is fully pedestrianised.
Aermont Capital
Established by Léon Bressler in 2007, Aermont Capital is the former real estate arm of Perella Weinberg, the investment banking advisory group.
It went independent in 2015, before buying Pinewood Studios the following year in a £323m deal. Pinewood’s west London lots are most famous for the filming of the James Bond franchise.
The latest deal comes after Aermont last year won the auction to buy Keepmoat, the UK’s seventh largest housebuilder, for more than £700m, beating the likes of Apollo Global Management and Terra Firma to the deal.
Bressler is the French executive who grew Unibail-Rodamco into Europe’s biggest property company before leaving in 2007 to set up Aermont.
The senior management team also includes Paul Golding, a former Norges Bank director, and Vincent Rouget, a former Morgan Stanley director.
All parties declined to comment.
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