A £207.5m sale of the Telegraph’s Victoria headquarters, once owned by convicted property fraudster Achilleas Kallakis, has completed.
Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate has confirmed it has bought 111 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1.
The underlying real estate is valued at £207.5m reflecting a gross yield of 5.1%, which is expected to rise to around 7% following new asset management plans. The deal was undertaken via a share purchase for a net price of £204.3m.
The 227,165 sq ft grade-A office building is let to the newspaper group for a further 6.7 years at a passing rent of £47 per sq ft.
It has been sold by Green Property Group as part of a package of buildings bought from Allied Irish Banks in late 2008.
111 Buckingham Palace Road was previously owned by a company affiliated with Achilleas Kallakis who, with his business partner Alexander Williams, was found guilty of property fraud.
He had used forged signatures and sham guarantees, among a catalogue of other tricks, to dupe AIB into loaning him money to buy buildings.
Kallakis bought the Telegraph block from the Barclay brothers in August 2007, with £224m of debt secured against it.
Mary Ricks, president and chief executive of Kennedy Wilson Europe, said “111 Buckingham Palace Road provides KWE with an exciting opportunity to enter the thriving Victoria market, where grade-A office vacancies sit at only 1.5% and prime headline rents exceed £80 per sq ft.”
Pat Gunne, chief executive of Green Property, added: “We secured an Eric Parry-designed planning consent which, if implemented, will dramatically enhance the reception area, and further the property’s appeal to major global occupiers.”
CBRE advised the Green Property; JLL represented Kennedy Wilson Europe.
