Fubon Life is under offer to buy the home of Madame Tussauds waxwork museum, NW1, for around £330m.
The building on Marylebone Road is being sold by Nick Leslau’s and Mike Brown’s Secure Income REIT.
The deal by the Taiwanese insurer is the latest illustration of the weight of capital coming to the UK from the Far East and investors’ appetite for trophy assets.
There were five bids over £320m including one from a UK investor.
Madame Tussauds, which is one of London’s most popular tourist attractions, is operated by Merlin Entertainments, which also runs The Dungeons, Sea Life Centre and Legoland venues. It is let to Merlin for another 27 years at a rent of £15.5m pa with increases in line with inflation every 12 months. As of 31 December 2014, the property was valued at £309.3m.
The deal is part of an ongoing refinancing process for Secure Income REIT, which was listed last June and is looking for around £700m of fresh debt. The sale will reduce the company’s gearing, which stands at 70% on its £1.6bn portfolio.
It also owns 20 private hospitals and other tourist attractions let to Merlin, including Warwick Castle, Thorpe Park in Surrey and Alton Towers in Staffordshire. It has two separate live refinancing mandates for the healthcare and leisure assets.
The purchase is the fourth real estate acquisition in the UK for the $75bn (£49.3bn) Fubon. It was part of the first wave of Taiwanese insurers to buy UK property following the introduction of rules in 2013 that permitted the company’s insurance sector to invest in real estate in a limited number of overseas jurisdictions.
Last month it bought 95 Wigmore Street, W1, for £222.4m, fronted by UBS Global Asset Management. It was acquired from Great Portland Estates and Aberdeen Asset Management.
Fubon is aiming to invest around $3bn in overseas property in the next four to five years.
Secure Income REIT declined to comment.
CBRE is acting for Secure Income REIT on the sale. Eastdil Secured and Morgan Stanley are advising on the refinancing.
david.hatcher@estatesgazette.com
