The Malaysian Employees Provident Fund has appointed agents to market the Fleet Street headquarters of corporate law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
Cushman & Wakefield has been instructed to find a buyer for the 230,000 sq ft 65 Fleet Street, EC4, seeking bids in the region of £170m – a circa 5% yield.
It is the second substantial London office investment put up for sale by EPF this year.
The giant Asian fund, which committed to a £1bn London investment push in 2010, sold Visa’s Paddington headquarters at 1 Sheldon Square, W2, to British Land for £210m in April this year.
As with Sheldon Square, which it bought for £150m, 65 Fleet Street is likely to net a substantial profit for EPF.
It paid Union Invest £148m – a 5.75% yield – for the building at the start of 2011.
EPF was among the first of the large Asian funds to plough into London this cycle and it is among a small handful which have since turned seller.
Its remaining London portfolio includes 40 Portman Square, W1, as well as a stake in the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, SW8, which it bought alongside SP Setia and Sime Darby for £400m in 2012.
Freshfield’s lease for the whole of 65 Fleet Street expires in 2020. The law firm is currently seeking around 100,000 sq ft of office space in Manchester where it plans to move up to 700 London based staff.
