Blackstone is to put the Sanctuary Buildings, SW1, up for sale after reletting the 227,000 sq ft office block in Victoria for another 15 years to the Department for Education last month.
Blackstone has appointed CBRE and Savills to look for offers of around £285m, which would represent a net initial yield of around 4.2%.
The DfE was expected to relocate to the 247,570 sq ft Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall following a £50m refurbishment, which was to save the taxpayer £19m a year.
Its new lease at the Sanctuary Buildings is understood to be at an increased annual rent of more than £50 per sq ft.
Blackstone acquired the 227,000 sq ft office block from Tishman Speyer in 2014 for £175m – representing a circa 5.6% yield – when the DfE had only around three years left on its lease.
The private equity giant has been divesting itself of its London office assets, which it built up between 2012 and 2015. Its most recent sale was that of the Adelphi building for £550m.
Last month the government updated its property estate strategy, targeting £3.6bn in savings over the next 20 years.
This includes reducing the total number of its office buildings from 800 to fewer than 200 by 2030.
The previous efficiency strategy set out in 2014 aimed to raise £5bn by 2020. So far, only £2bn has been accrued from the sale of more than a thousand buildings.
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