UBS circles fellow Swiss bank’s HQ in record City fringe buy
UBS’s asset management arm is to buy the next UK headquarters of fellow Swiss bank Julius Baer, in a deal that could achieve a new valuation record for the area.
The institutional investor is in talks to buy 20-23 Greville Street, EC1, in Farringdon, from Seaforth Land for £70m, EG can reveal. UBS is buying the building on behalf of a Swiss client.
The transaction, thought to be valued at almost £2,000 per sq ft, would be the highest value per square foot ever recorded in the City fringe submarket, researchers at Colliers said. The transaction is thought to reflect a 3.45% yield.
UBS’s asset management arm is to buy the next UK headquarters of fellow Swiss bank Julius Baer, in a deal that could achieve a new valuation record for the area.
The institutional investor is in talks to buy 20-23 Greville Street, EC1, in Farringdon, from Seaforth Land for £70m, EG can reveal. UBS is buying the building on behalf of a Swiss client.
The transaction, thought to be valued at almost £2,000 per sq ft, would be the highest value per square foot ever recorded in the City fringe submarket, researchers at Colliers said. The transaction is thought to reflect a 3.45% yield.
Even in the neighbouring City of London, the record value per square foot is 122 Leadenhall Street, EC3, known as the Cheesegrater, which sold to CC Land in 2017 for £1.15bn at a 3.42% yield, equating to a £1,885 per sq ft capital value.
Designed by Groupwork + Amin Taha, the £8m refurbishment of 20-23 Greville Street involved restoring the existing site and reinstating the building’s original Edwardian architecture. The block features cross-laminated timber construction work as part of the revamp, which also saw the ground and first floors turned into retail space.
The office segment of the 35,566 sq ft building was prelet to Julius Baer in January, with the company taking 27,000 sq ft over six floors to house around 200 staff. The move is part of Julius Baer’s new hybrid working strategy, which will see it downsize its space by a third from its current offices at 1 St Martin’s Le Grand, EC1.
Originally built in the 1970s, 20-23 Greville Street sits on the thoroughfare between Hatton Garden and Farringdon Tube station, a stop on the upcoming Elizabeth Line. A flurry of big-name occupiers have been lured to the area already this year by the promise of the new transport link, set to open this year.
Those include tech firms Snapchat and TikTok, which are moving to HB Reavis’s Bloom and Helical’s Kaleidoscope buildings respectively.
The latter office building is also up for sale following its letting, in a deal which Helical hopes will fetch about £180m.
Savills advised UBS on the deal. All parties declined to comment.
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Photos: RED
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