UBS Group’s London HQ Sells For £1.25bil
UNITED KINGDOM – The National Pension Service (NPS) of South Korea has teamed up with a LaSalle Investment Management vehicle to purchase the 5 Broadgate complex, an office complex that serves as the London headquarters of UBS Group, for £1.25 billion ($1.65 billion), reported Mingtiandi on Sunday (5 December, SGT).
Notably, the joint venture (JV) has trumped other bidders, namely mainland Chinese billionaire Du Shuanghua’s Bright Ruby Resources and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadal Investment Company, for the right to the 700,000 sq ft commercial property within the Bishopsgate Without area in the City of London.
The 13-storey groundscraper completed 6 years ago comes with 12 office levels, which are all leased to UBS Group until at least 2035. Interestingly, the asset was built to suit the multinational bank. It also forms part of the 4.7 million sq ft Broadgate commercial property constructed by London-listed British Land.
The seller is CK Asset Holdings, a real estate developer controlled by Li Ka-shing, the wealthiest man in Hong Kong. The company had reportedly been seeking a buyer for 5 Broadgate since June 2021, with the vendor said to have set a selling price of at least £1 billion at that time for the office building.
Previously, the Hong Kong-based property developer bought the commercial property in June 2018 for £1 billion from a JV comprising British Land and Singapore’s GIC. At the reported selling price, CK Asset Holdings is getting roughly £1,786 psf for the 5 Broadgate office complex.
The transaction comes as London’s flourishing office investment market attracts Asian capital. In September, Hong Kong-based Kerry Properties acquired a West End office block for US$199 million, while Singapore’s Sun Venture announced last week that it is buying a freehold property from WeWork.
