British Land has sold Debenhams’ flagship store on Oxford Street, W1, for £400m.
A private investor has bought the 366,000 sq ft seven storey retail flagship, which is let in its entirety to Debenhams until 2039.
Chief executive Chris Grigg said in a statement that the move to sell reflects British Land’s retail strategy to focus on multi-let investments.
This is not the first time that British Land has pursued a sale of the trophy West End block. In 2008 the REIT explored a sale of the property through CBRE, asking around £150m at the time, but no deal was agreed.
It bought the Oxford Street asset in 2005 as part of a 495m sale-and-leaseback of 23 Debenhams stores.
Chris Grigg, chief executive said: “British Land has entered this period of post-referendum uncertainty in a robust position. We have a strong, resilient business with a clear strategy.
“We have a modern portfolio which is well suited to current and future customer needs. The portfolio is 99% occupied with a wide range of quality occupiers on long leases.
“Our finances are strong with an LTV of 29.7%, proforma for exchanged disposals, and the group has no refinancing requirement for over four years.
“Our speculative development commitments are low at 4% of the portfolio and we have considerable flexibility in our development pipeline.”
The company’s Q1 results are released on 18 July.
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