Bloomberg has agreed terms to sell its largest London office on Finsbury Square to Brookfield ahead of its move to a new European HQ.
Brookfield is under offer to buy City Gate House at 39-45 Finsbury Square, EC2, for around £90m, with a view to undertaking a major refurbishment or redevelopment.
The 178,000 sq ft building will be leased back to Bloomberg on a short-term basis.
Bloomberg’s new campus close to Bank Station, EC3, is expected to be completed in 2017.
The New York headquartered media company bought City Gate House from Tishman Speyer in 2000 for £69m.
The latest sale of the building attracted substantial interest from developers attracted by the on-going transformation of the City fringes which has driven up rents in Finsbury Square.
Resolution’s nearby Alpha Beta development on the north site of the square has attracted strong interest from technology occupiers, with the latest lettings in the building achieving rents of around £57.50 per sq ft.
For Brookfield – which secured the building ahead of competition from bidders including D2 Private and HoBee – the deal will add to its London development pipeline, the majority of which has now been prelet.
The giant North American investor and developer has leased more than 1.2m sq ft in London since buying the bulk of Hammerson’s office portfolio for £518m in 2012 and has been looking to increase its exposure to the buoyant London office market.
BNP Paribas Real Estate is advising Bloomberg; GM Real Estate is acting for Brookfield.
