Lego Family Building London Property Portfolio
For some potential buyers the closest they will get to owning a slice of super-pricey London real estate is a Lego house they built themselves. Not so for the $16B fund managing the wealth of the owners of the playbricks toy empire.
Fresh from the purchase of Derwent's 44K SF Porter's Wharf development at Kings Cross, on offer via Savills for around £48M, fund manager Kirkbi A/S said they still have an appetite for London beyond the financial sector.
The Lego fund’s latest is interested in areas like Kings Cross dominated by technology, media and telecom companies. They believe such districts will be less exposed to Brexit risks to the economy, Bloomberg reports. Kirkbi said they are large enough to ride out short-term turbulence in the U.K. property sector or economy.
Porter's Wharf is Kirkbi's third London purchase. Their portfolio also includes 1 Plough Place, Holborn, acquired in 2015 for £55M and partially occupied by Lego, and 92K SF at New Fetter Place, EC4. Kirkbi's assets include a 30% stake in Merlin Entertainment.
The fund manages wealth on behalf of the Kristiansen family and today is chaired by the grandson of the Lego founder, Ole Kirk Kristiansen. Bloomberg estimates his personal worth at about $5.3B.
