Joseph Lau’s Chinese Estates has bought the Mayfair headquarters of private bank Kleinwort Benson for £121.7m – a 3.5% yield.
The investor has acquired the Eric Parry-designed 14 St George Street, W1, from Aberdeen Asset Management.
The 51,861 sq ft office is fully let to the bank until 2020 at an average passing rent of £86.88 per sq ft – well below current market rents.
Kleinwort Benson sublets space to tenants including global trading firm Trafigura, which moved in last year after an aborted deal to move to Mercury’s 30 Berkeley Square, W1. It pays £150 per sq ft.
The property is the first acquisition made by Chinese Estates since it purchased Goldman Sachs’ London headquarters at River Court, 120 Fleet Street, EC4, for £300m in 2011.
Chinese Estates recently made headlines for selling the 26-storey Mass Mutual Tower in Hong Kong for a record HK$12.5bn (£1.1bn) – more than twice the previous record for a commercial sale in Hong Kong.
Colliers advised Aberdeen Asset Management; CBRE acted on behalf of the purchaser.
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