Brookfield Asset Management is poised to walk away from a £300m deal to buy the sprawling Broadgate West office complex, EC2.
EG revealed earlier this year that the Canadian property giant was in advanced negotiations to buy the 460,000 sq ft City estate.
As part of the deal, the development’s owner, Peter Marano’s Gemini Commercial Investments, was expected to retain an interest in the scheme, given that it has consent for a further phase of 450,000 sq ft.
As EG went to press, Gemini and selling agent CBRE were preparing to bring the asset back to market, with under-bidders including Hines tipped to have a second look.
If the sale had completed, it would have been Brookfield’s largest single-asset deal in London for more than five years. Last April it bought a 50% stake in Great Portland Estates’ 100 Bishopsgate, EC2, for £43m.
A source said: “News that Brookfield was to buy Broadgate West came from leftfield because the market had always assumed it would primarily target core assets. For Brookfield, it really was a case of the right asset in the wrong part of town.”
Despite the abundance of big-ticket City assets on the market, worryingly few deals have been completed in recent weeks. According to Jones Lang LaSalle, just £94m was transacted in October over two deals.
james.buckley@estatesgazette.com
