The sale of £200m of BlackRock assets entitled Project Rio has been called off after buyers missed the deadlines to come up with a satisfactory offer.
JLL had been appointed in August to sell the 20 assets, split across offices, retail and industrial, and some car showrooms.
But the prospect of a sale was pulled far down the line as a result of the missed deadlines, as a result of inflows into BlackRock’s property funds as well as successful sales elsewhere.
It had already pulled the £100m sale of its 76,000 sq ft office building, a Tesco store and flats at 25 Bedford Street, WC2, in September.
That move was linked to the successful sale of Sony Playstation’s Europe headquarters at 10-12 Great Marlborough Street, W1, to Qatar’s Alduwaliya Asset Management for £104m in an off-market deal.
From 10 September: BlackRock achieves Sony HQ sale
The Project Rio sale cancellation is also a reflection of the improvement in the sector of open ended funds since they took actions to close and revalue in the wake of the EU referendum result.
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