M&G completes £78m Farringdon office deal
M&G has closed a £78m deal to pick up the recently refurbished Saffron House, EC1.
The investment manager confirmed today that it had bought the 73,000 sq ft office block near Farringdon station on behalf of an Asian separate account client, as part of a broader plan to target value-add deals in the area.
Farringdon has proved an increasingly popular hunting ground for investors, with the planned opening of a new Crossrail station attracting scores of well-known occupiers in recent years including Amazon, TikTok and Goldman Sachs.
M&G has closed a £78m deal to pick up the recently refurbished Saffron House, EC1.
The investment manager confirmed today that it had bought the 73,000 sq ft office block near Farringdon station on behalf of an Asian separate account client, as part of a broader plan to target value-add deals in the area.
Farringdon has proved an increasingly popular hunting ground for investors, with the planned opening of a new Crossrail station attracting scores of well-known occupiers in recent years including Amazon, TikTok and Goldman Sachs.
Nevertheless, M&G’s most recent deal has come in at nearly £10m below seller Columbia Threadneedle’s initial list price of £87.5m in October last year. The building is let to six tenants, including PitchBook Data, Habitat Retail and Cloudreach Europe, producing a combined annual rent of just under £4.2m.
M&G plans to refurbish the vacant lower-ground floor to let in more light and create more space. It will also improve the building’s back entrance on Saffron Hill to provide direct access on that level, it said.
The purchase comes after M&G bought Fleet Place House, EC4, adjacent to City Thameslink station, for £111m in October last year.
Paul Crosbie, who leads M&G’s UK value-add business, said: “Central London’s large, liquid market and deep tenant base will continue to appeal to a diverse range of occupiers.
“From a cyclical perspective, the supply of good-quality office space remains restricted, particularly for buildings with character in these dynamic, sought-after sub-markets.
“It is these combined factors which provide us with the confidence to take income risk in these low-vacancy markets, which in turn offers our investors a compelling opportunity to capture value-add returns.”
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