Invesco Real Estate (IRE), the global real estate investment manager, is pleased to announce that it has acquired 107 Cheapside, a BREEAM 'Very Good'-rated office and retail property in the City of London, for ca. £124 million (approx. 144 million).
The investment has been made on behalf of the iii-BVK Europa-Immobilien-Spezialfonds, an institutional real estate fund of Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK), which Invesco Real Estate has managed since 2000.
Bettina Knirsch, IRE's Director of Fund Management, says: "We are delighted with the acquisition of this highly prominent grade-A building, which is in a prime location in Cheapside, midway between the Bank of England and St Paul's, and diagonally opposite the City's first shopping center, One New Change.
"The investment complements our client's existing fund well by focusing on strong real estate fundamentals of a high quality property in a core location and benefits from being multi-let. It is thanks to our local transactions team's relationships within the marketplace that provided us with this rare opportunity to secure this well-regarded property in the City."
107 Cheapside was constructed in 2009 and designed by the award-winning John Robertson Architects. The modern, grade-A property has a BREEAM 'Very Good' rating and benefits from extensive frontage on Cheapside with an overall space of ca. 185,000 ft², including ca. 21,000 ft² of retail space. It is multi-let to 13 tenants over 10 floors including seven retail units and underground parking.
Tenants include global law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who uses the property as its headquarters, Hays Specialist Recruitment, as well as retailers Boots, Kuoni Travel and Pizza Express to name a few. It benefits from excellent transport links via the underground, Docklands Light Railway and mainline rail services as well as the new Crossrail project.
Rob Johnston, IRE's Senior Director, UK Transactions, says: "Cheapside is considered to be one of the City of London's most sought after office and retail locations as well as being the City's main retail thoroughfare. The area has benefitted from significant improvement in the past five years with the completion of a number of major development and refurbishment projects, further enhancing its reputation as a prime City location and ensuring the area continues to attract leading occupiers. The development of 100 Cheapside, which is on the adjacent site to our property, will further improve Cheapside in our view."
In the past 12 months, IRE has successfully invested over 1 billion into pan-European commercial property across the four sectors of office, retail, logistics and hotels for its fund and separate account mandates.
For the Cheapside acquisition, Strutt & Parker acted on behalf of IRE and CBRE acted on behalf of the seller, Menolly Investments.
Source: Invesco Real Estate
