British Airways has started a fire sale of properties following its announcement that it is to axe 5,800 jobs.
Insignia Richard Ellis has been working with the carrier to identify land and buildings in its £1bn estate that could be sold to raise desperately needed cash.
The four-building Odyssey Business Park, Ruislip, Middlesex, home to 750 staff, will be sold and leased back.
Astral Towers, a seven-storey building situated on the outskirts of Crawley, West Sussex, has also been put on the market. The building is home to staff from Air Miles and BA Holidays.
Overseas disposals include residential developments in Victoria Court and Nishi Azabu in Tokyo, and the BA staff hotel in New York, where three of the seven floors will be leased back.
Up to a third of the job cuts will be at BA’s Heathrow headquarters, but there are no plans to sell its 280-acre (113ha)Waterside campus.
BA also plans to sell the Hatton Cross industrial and office estate, close to Heathrow, and its pension fund is believed to be looking to cash in on its leasehold interest in Berkeley Square House, W1.
EGi News 15/02/02
