The joint owners of MidCity Place, WC1, have approached lenders to refinance the Midtown office building.
Oxford Properties and Singaporean investment fund Temasek, each of which hold a 50% stake in the building, are looking for more than £220m in new finance for the 337,000 sq ft block.
Beacon Capital Partners sold its stakes in the property in 2011 to Oxford and 2014 to Temasek.
Despite the separate ownership structure, the two companies are working together to arrange the refinancing.
When Temasek bought its 50% stake in September last year, the building was valued at £350m and was nearly 100% let. Temasek is understood to have paid marginally more than the £175m asking price for its share.
Oxford and Temasek are looking for a loan-to-value ratio of close to 65%. And in a sign of the rising competitiveness of the lending market the borrowers, advised by Eastdil Secured, are looking for a loan at a margin as low as 120bps.
Given the required margin the deal will have to be undertaken by a lender with a low cost of capital.
Such lenders include BNP Paribas and ING, which have been active in the London market, financing prime assets at similar margins. German banks utilising the pfandbrief market and investment banks may also be able to compete for the mandate.
MidCity Place was Temasek’s first London acquisition after it opened a UK office in the early part of 2014. Since then the company has taken stakes in other prime London office assets including the Bankside Quarter development on the South Bank, SE1, and iconic stalled City tower The Pinnacle, EC2.
