Snapchat’s new London office at 77 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1, is on the market with a price tag of £114m.
Capital Real Estate Partners has been instructed to sell the 70,737 sq ft freehold, which is owned by a private overseas investor through Dolford Property Holdings – a British Virgin Islands company managed via Hong Kong. The asking price reflects a net initial yield of 4.1%.
Snap Group, the new UK arm of US-based instant photo messaging company Snapchat, agreed a deal earlier this year to establish its UK headquarters at the Soho building, paying around £70 per sq ft for 20,000 sq ft on a 10-year lease.
Dolford Property acquired the block from Swedish Life Insurance firm Gamla for £37.9m in 2010. It has since carried out a £13m refurbishment, adding an extra floor and bringing its total office space to just under 60,000 sq ft.
Occupiers also include the Bank of East Asia, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and mergers and acquisitions advisory firm Quayle Munro.
The building has a weighted average unexpired lease term of 8.4 years to tenants’ breaks and 13.2 years to lease expiries. Total rental income is just under £5m per annum, equating to £70.43 per sq ft overall.
The sale will be seen as a test for the strength of the West End office market, which saw £3.9bn of investment in the first six months of the year according to Savills – the second highest volume on record for H1. However, the number of deals so far this year (55) was the lowest ever recorded, which Savills attributed to investors focusing on acquiring “large trophy assets”.
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