Sinar Mas Land Offloads London Office Bldg For £247.5mil
UNITED KINGDOM – Singapore-listed real estate company Sinar Mas Land has agreed to divest an office property in London close to Westminster Abbey for £247.5 million (US$292.3 million), reported Mingtiandi on Friday (15 July, SGT).
Known as 33 Horseferry Road, the freehold office building is being purchased by LTH Property Holdings 3 Ltd, a fully-owned unit of Lembaga Tabung Haji, a Malaysian government-owned company that finances pilgrimages to Mecca by carrying out Shariah-compliant investments.
The commercial property has a net lettable area (NLA) of 180,600 sq ft, which comprise 16,839 sq ft of ground-floor retail premises and 163,761 sq ft of Grade A office space. The offices are fully occupied by the UK government’s Secretary of State for Transport until 2033.
“The proposed disposal provides an opportunity for the group to realise an attractive rate of return on its investment,” stated Sinar Mas in a filing with the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
Previously, Sinar Mas Land purchased 33 Horseferry Road for £188.6 million in June 2017, indicating a gain of over 31 percent once the office deal is concluded by early-August 2022.
Apart from being just a 10-minute walk to Westminster Abbey, the office building is strategically located in Victoria, a major commercial and residential district in central London.
Lembaga Tabung Haji is forking out about £1,370 (US$1,618) psf in terms of the office property’s NLA. The Malaysian conglomerate’s previous London assets included the 151 Buckingham Palace Road office building that was unloaded to a consortium of private investors led by Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital Partners in 2015.
The sale of 33 Horseferry Road comes two months after Sinar Mas, which is controlled by Indonesia’s Widjaja family, announced plans to acquire a commercial property in London’s Charing Cross area for £195 million (US$238 million).
