Private equity firm Patron Capital Partners is in talks with Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency as it looks to add further assets to its growing UK portfolio.
The company is in talks with the “bad bank” to acquire Gillette’s former European headquarters in west London. The firm has been in negotiations with Nama over a deal for the Grade-II listed building and 10.5-acre development site in Isleworth, Middlesex, after talks for a circa £15m sale to Stanhope ended.
Irish developer Jim McGettigan’s Bonnington Group bought the site in late 2005 for about £30m with funding from Allied Irish Bank.
In 2008, the group won planning consent to turn the landmark building into a HOK International-designed 500-bedroom hotel and 506,000 sq ft of offices.
It is understood that Patron is keen to line up a tenant for a major prelet in any proposed redevelopment.
A spokesman for the firm said: “Patron is always looking at opportunities, and doesn’t comment on deals that may or may not go ahead.”
The talks have emerged at the same time as Patron completed a deal with Royal Bank of Scotland to buy a chain of 24 Ramada Jarvis hotels from administrator Grant Thornton.
Patron and RBS’s distressed property vehicle, West Register, formed a partnership called Jupiter Hotels, which bought the hotels for £111m after a restructuring of the business in a pre-pack administration.
Under the terms of the deal, the company’s debts with RBS, HSBC and Bank of Ireland will be cut from £130m to £70m, and the new owners will inject £40m of equity.
Patron, which deploys about £1.4bn across several funds, bought two hotel developments beside the Olympic Park in east London for £50m in January.
