US investor Perella Weinberg Partners is under offer to buy prime Mayfair office 33 Grosvenor Place, SW1, for around £204m, reflecting a sub-5% yield.
It is buying the 187,765 sq ft office building, which overlooks Buckingham Palace Gardens, after securing an exclusivity agreement with US insurer WR Berkley.
The building, marketed by Knight Frank and Eastdil Secured for more than £190m, is let to oil and gas solutions firm Hess until June 2016.
All parties declined to comment on the deal.
The deal is one of a trio of trophy West End sales totalling more than £400m that were agreed or completed this week.
Several opportunistic investors are understood to have eyed 33 Grosvenor Place, including Blackstone, Queensgate, Wainbridge and hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management, which is based next door.
Perella will appoint a development partner on completion of its purchase of the long leasehold. It plans to undertake a refurbishment of the building, which is likely to include extending the floorspace by infilling part of the atrium.
Grosvenor owns the freehold to 33 Grosvenor Place.
Perella has bid on a string of large central London refurbishment opportunities over the past two years.
In March, it bought short let City icon 1 Poultry, EC2, for £110m with plans to reposition the building.
In 2012, it bid for the £260m Adelphi building, WC2, but lost out to Blackstone, which is now working on a £30m refurbishment of the offices.
Other West End trophies traded this week at above asking include 22 Hanover Square, W1.
Indiabulls completed the purchase of JLL’s 87,500 sq ft West End offices from SWIP for £155m, 19% above the asking price.
In Victoria, a Middle Eastern investor paid just over the £60m asking price to a private Asian vendor for 73,000 sq ft 50 Broadway, SW1, opposite St James’s Park Underground station.
H2SO, which was bought by Colliers International this week, advised SWIP; JLL acted for the 50 Broadway vendor; the Middle Eastern buyer and Indiabulls were unrepresented.
joanna.bourke@estatesgazette.com
jack.sidders@estatesgazette.com
