Inside Almacantar’s £2B Sale
One of London's largest developers is looking for new capital.
Almacantar has appointed Rothschild to find new investors or sell the business for £2B so the company can continue to grow, CoStar reports.
The capital-raising process will be one of the largest corporate deals in London property history, and mark a new phase for one of the capital’s biggest developers, led by Mike Hussey.
Here are the key numbers behind the deal.
1.5M SF — the size of Almacantar’s portfolio, which comprises six schemes: Centre Point, Marble Arch Place, CAA House, One and Two Southbank Place, Lyons Place and 125 Shaftesbury Ave.
£1.2B — the value of the business in March 2016. Almacantar was set up in 2010 by Mike Hussey, and its four shareholders included Exor, the investment vehicle of the Agnelli family, as well as the Wertheimer family, owners of Chanel.
But in March 2016 Exor sold its 36% stake in Almacantar to PartnerRe, an insurance company it owned, in an inter-company transaction. Exor said PartnerRe had paid €485M cash for its stake, valuing the business at €1.35B (£1.2B).
£4B — Almacantar’s target for the size of its portfolio, the reason the sale or capital raising is taking place.
“The debate we have had over the last 12 months ... is that we are much, much bigger than we thought we were going to be and our existing shareholder group is only four people,” Hussey told The Times. “They have consistently supported our request for growth and capital since 2010 and we have ended up as a very sizeable London development business.”
£55M and 50% — the price of the penthouse flat at Centre Point and the proportion of the 82 flats sold so far. Almacantar bought the famous 33-storey, 1960s-built Centre Point tower in 2011 for £120M and the total cost of redeveloping the building will be £350M. The cheapest apartment is £1.8M.
420K SF — the amount of space in Almacantar’s portfolio leased to WeWork. That comprises 140K SF at the 190K SF redevelopment of 125 Shaftesbury Ave. and the entire 280K SF scheme at Two Southbank Place, which completes later this year next to Waterloo Station. Almacantar mulled a £275M sale of 125 Shaftesbury Ave. last summer, a 4.25% yield.
8.5% — the interest rate margin on the £400M development loan provided by hedge fund The Children’s Investment Fund to finance the £540M cost of redeveloping Marble Arch Place on the northeast corner of Hyde Park. That is according to the accounts of the special purpose vehicle that owns the building. The scheme will comprise 54 luxury apartments and 95K SF of office and retail space.
