Peabody Global Real Estate Partners has made its debut in the UK with the purchase of a £300m office estate in the City of London.
Peabody, the real estate private equity fund which is co-sponsored by JP Morgan and New York real estate investment firm The O’Connor Group, has bought Cutlers Gardens from Scottish institution Standard Life. The scheme comprises 10 buildings located around two central courtyards and was completed in 1982.
The estate has 56,576m2 of offices with ancillary retail, restaurants and a health club. The sale also includes the adjacent Shield House, a 3,158m2 potential development site. Jones Lang LaSalle acted for the vendor. Peabody was advised by Lambert Smith Hampton and Dawnay Day Structured Finance. The transaction was funded with a loan from Morgan Stanley.
Peabody is an $830m opportunistic fund which was set up on a highly-geared basis almost three years ago, with 50% of its assets allocated to Europe.
Commenting on the sale, Alex Watt, managing director of property investments at Standard Life, said: “The sale of Cutlers Gardens has realised a significant sum that is being reinvested in our ambitious speculative development programme in the UK and continental Europe.”
