There Aren’t Many Forced Sellers In London Right Now, But This One Is Offering An £80M Discount
There are very few forced sellers in the London market right now, and those there are tend to be Chinese firms ordered by the government to bring capital home. But those firms are looking at some pretty substantial losses.
Dalian Wanda has been forced to unload two residential development schemes in Nine Elms. And now conglomerate HNA is looking to sell a Canary Wharf office building for as much as £80M less than what it paid for it in 2015.
The company is in advanced talks to sell the 305K SF 30 South Colonnade for about £135M, according to Bloomberg. Property Week later named the potential buyer as Chinese investor Cindat Capital Management. HNA paid £215M for the building in September 2015.
Prices in the London market peaked in 2015, and since then have fallen by around 10% to 15%, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. But part of the reason for the fall is that the tenant, Reuters, will move out of the building later this year.
Cindat and its advisor LS Estates are in talks with WeWork to occupy a major chunk of the space being vacated by Reuters, Property Week reports. The coworking firm has been looking for a first location in Canary Wharf, and is also in talks with the European Medicines Agency to take over the 300K SF lease it has at 30 Churchill Place. The EMA recently lost a legal case where it argued it should be able to break the lease because of Brexit.
