British Land cemented Paddington Central as its third great London office estate this week with the purchase of Visa’s headquarters for around £200m.
The 195,000 sq ft 1 Sheldon Square, W2, is part of the 1.2m sq ft Paddington Central development, the remainder of which British Land bought from Aviva Investors for £470m in 2013.
It is being sold by Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management on behalf of Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund, which bought the building in 2010 for £150m from a consortium including Aviva.
The latest sale represents the first time a Paddington office has traded at a sub-5% yield.
Visa has around eight years left on its lease at Sheldon Square.
British Land now owns around 800,000 sq ft of offices in Paddington, including 2 Kingdom Street, 3 Kingdom Street and 3 Sheldon Square and it has recently commenced construction of the 146,000 sq ft 4 Kingdom Street.
It also owns the consented 210,000 sq ft 5 Kingdom Street development.
British Land subsidiary Broadgate Estates this week announced that it would move its HQ from Regent’s Place, NW1, to larger offices at 2 Kingdom Street.
British Land already owns two major London office campuses – the 30-acre Broadgate Estate, EC2, which it this week converted to a REIT, and the 13-acre Regent’s Place, NW1, near Euston Station.
