Tishman Speyer sells West End landmark for £160m
Tishman Speyer has sold Smithson Plaza, former home of The Economist magazine in SW1, to the property investment arm of Portuguese insurer Fidelidade, in a deal thought to be worth around £160m.
The deal is understood to reflect a 4.75% yield. The US developer picked up the Grade II listed, three-building complex from The Economist in March 2016, before carrying out a major refurbishment and leasing the space two years later for a then-record rate of £200 per sq foot.
Smithson Plaza, a 1964 modernist landmark by architects Alison and Peter Smithson, is currently 91% occupied, and is dominated by the 14-storey, 52,000 sq ft Smithson Tower office building, the tallest in St James’.
Tishman Speyer has sold Smithson Plaza, former home of The Economist magazine in SW1, to the property investment arm of Portuguese insurer Fidelidade, in a deal thought to be worth around £160m.
The deal is understood to reflect a 4.75% yield. The US developer picked up the Grade II listed, three-building complex from The Economist in March 2016, before carrying out a major refurbishment and leasing the space two years later for a then-record rate of £200 per sq foot.
Smithson Plaza, a 1964 modernist landmark by architects Alison and Peter Smithson, is currently 91% occupied, and is dominated by the 14-storey, 52,000 sq ft Smithson Tower office building, the tallest in St James’.
It is also made up of the seven-storey, 11,000 sq ft Denham Building, most of which is residential accommodation, and the five-storey Bank Building which houses 5,000 sq ft of office space.
“The entire team at Tishman Speyer is incredibly proud of what it has achieved at Smithson Plaza – a rejuvenated home to an accomplished mix of office, retail and residential tenants,” said Dan Nicholson, managing director of Tishman Speyer UK.
“We have taken our responsibility as custodians of this iconic property with the utmost seriousness and trust that our other goal – of welcoming the broader public back into the plaza – continues to stand the test of time.”
The New York-based investor also owns The Point in Paddington, W2, and the headquarters of Sainsbury’s supermarket in Holborn, EC1. It bought Smithson Plaza on behalf of its value-add fund TSEV VII, and the complex is the final asset to be sold from the vehicle.
Nicholson added that the exit “substantially crystallises the performance of the fund”, which is projected to “deliver its net target return to investors”.
It comes after Tishman Speyer ploughed more than €750m into three office buildings in and around Paris in the final weeks of 2020, in a bet that the market in the French capital was nearing rock bottom before an eventual recovery.
Image courtesy of PR
