Evans Randall, the privately-owned investment banking group, has acquired 33 Old Broad Street, London EC2 for €266.4 mln (£197 mln), as part of its ongoing programme to acquire up to €2.71 bln (£2 bln) of real estate assets throughout Europe during 2006/2007.
Old Broad Street, London.
The 192,300-sq-ft office building, located in the central core of the City of London, is let to Halifax plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of HBOS, on a 35-year lease with 33 years remaining. The current rent is approximately £8 million a year and the lease contains fixed rental uplifts every five years at 2.56% p.a. compound.
Evans Randall acquired the building from a joint venture between Prestbury, West Coast Capital and Bank of Scotland, advised by Franc Warwick. Evans Randall was advised by its retained agent, CB Richard Ellis.
Michael Evans, Chief Executive of Evans Randall, said: "33 Old Broad Street fits perfectly with our strategy to acquire large commercial assets occupied by tenants with strong covenants, on leases with fixed or index-linked rental uplifts. We are actively looking to acquire similar assets throughout Europe."
Evans Randall is targeting properties of between £75m and £300m in value, particularly in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and the cities of Paris and Brussels. It sources, arranges, co-invests in and manages large-scale property investments on behalf of private investors, as part of an investment banking business that also specialises in high value, cross border structured finance transactions.
In the past 12 months, the company has invested substantially in the commercial real estate sector, which has become a particularly attractive asset class in comparison with equities and bonds.
To date it has acquired close to £1.5 billion of UK and mainland European property investments on behalf of clients. Major transactions include:
ING Bank's 225 million landmark building at Haagse Poort The Hague, Netherlands.
The head office of the Financial Services Authority at 25 North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14, for £200m.
ABN AMRO's London headquarters at 250 Bishopsgate, London EC2, for a similar figure.
The European headquarters of 3M in Bracknell, Berkshire, for £75m.
Source: FD Tamesis
