CBRE has been accused in this morning’s Times of misleading prospective buyers of the Royal Liver Building over who owns the Liverpool landmark.
The agent announced this month that it was selling the office building for £90m “on behalf of the current owner, Corestate Capital”. However, accounts for Corestate, which is based in Luxembourg, show that it owns only 35% of the building. The British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri, owner of Everton FC, owns 49.9% of the office building.
Moshiri has found himself under growing pressure in recent weeks because of his links to the sanctioned billionaire oligarch Alisher Usmanov.
In a statement sent to EG, CBRE said: “We were retained to sell the building earlier this year by Corestate Capital, the duly appointed asset manager and joint owner. Corestate has been our sole point of contact in relation to the building. It is standard practice in the real estate industry to be retained by and work for asset managers, who act as the owner’s representative and hold a significant equity interest, and it is wholly appropriate to refer to them as ‘the owners’. The full ownership structure is, of course, fully disclosed to qualified prospective purchasers. In addition, Mr. Moshiri’s ownership position in the building has been well reported.”
