This Week's London Deal Sheet
The Deal Sheet is a weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email mark.faithfull@bisnow.com.
Global marketing and PR agency Team Lewis has signed for the whole 10,500 SF top floor at Battersea Power Station’s 50 Electric Boulevard for its new headquarters in the second major deal announced for the office scheme.
Team Lewis is relocating from Millbank Tower in Westminster to the new Foster + Partners-designed workplace that includes its own private roof terrace of approximately 3,300 SF. More than 1,500 SF will be used for studios to provide in-house facilities for the design and production of marketing campaigns.
This latest lease follows the announcement that home technology company SharkNinja had taken 32K SF at 50 Electric Boulevard for its new EMEA headquarters.
“With its very own private roof terrace and sweeping panoramic views of the Power Station and London skyline, the top floor of 50 Electric Boulevard is an inspirational setting for Team Lewis to continue delivering the powerful campaigns the agency is known for,” Battersea Power Station Development Company Head of Asset Management Sam Cotton said in announcing the deal.
DEALS
Pandox has acquired three aparthotels with a total of 503 rooms in central London for approximately £230M. The hotels are branded Residence Inn by Marriott and are operated by Axiom Hospitality under a management agreement.
The acquisition of the sites in Kensington, Tower Bridge and London Bridge was financed by available cash funds and a new green bank loan.
“We are happy to have acquired three well-positioned freehold aparthotels in strong locations in central London, thereby increasing our exposure towards the attractive ‘extended-stay’ segment,” Pandox CEO Liia Nõu said in a statement. “Through the acquisition, we also increase our already strong hotel operating partnership with Axiom Hospitality to a total of eight hotels in the UK.”
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LaSalle Investment Management bought a London hotel from Abrdn for £56M on behalf of a UK custom account client.
The 291-bedroom property is at the Minories at Tower Hill in the City of London. The hotel is let to Motel One on a long-term, inflation-linked lease. The building achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating on its construction in 2014 and has an energy performance certificate rating of A.
“The hotel meets our objectives, being a high-quality asset with strong sustainability credentials, in a fantastic city-centre location, with a long-term inflation-linked income stream, and leased to a leading European hotel operator,” JLL Managing Director Sophie Simmonds, who represented Abrdn, said in a statement.
LaSalle was advised on the transaction by Kimmre.
FUNDING
Legal & General has funded a new £85M investment with Anchor, which will use the proceeds primarily to fund development of affordable energy-efficient homes. Anchor plans to build an average of at least 500 homes a year over a rolling 10-year period, the companies said.
The investment on behalf of Legal & General Institutional Retirement has been described by L&G as a 15-year bullet senior secured note as part of a £100M bilateral L&G shelf facility, which has now been fully drawn.
Anchor owns more than 35,500 social rented properties, 12,500 homeownership properties and 120 care homes.
DEVELOPMENT
HBD, the property investment and development arm of Henry Boot, has completed an industrial and logistics unit at Airport Business Park Southend with a £15M gross development value.
The company agreed in April 2023 to develop a 140K SF freehold design and build unit for Ipeco Holdings, more than doubling its manufacturing space at ABPS.
HBD has also received planning permission for a further 75K SF across two units at ABPS, which will be marketed on a design-and-build basis. HBD said it anticipates work commencing in the first quarter.
PLANNING
Aviva Investors has lodged a preplanning application to the City of London Corporation for the redevelopment of 130 Fenchurch Street into a 33-storey office tower.
Its previous plans for the site on the southern edge of the Square Mile’s eastern cluster of towers were for a 17-storey building, but in July, Aviva appointed CO-RE to mastermind fresh proposals. It said it expects to file a planning application early next year.
The scheme would replace the site’s 1950s Fountain House and would have a total floor space of around 495K SF, with retail and restaurant space at ground level and office space above.
Demolition of the 15-storey Fountain House would start in early 2026, should the plans be approved, with construction on the new scheme set to start in early 2027 and complete in 2030.
PEOPLE
CBRE has hired Nicolas Brandebourger as an executive director in its European debt and structured finance team.
Brandebourger will join CBRE from pension insurance lender Rothesay, where he was head of commercial real estate origination for the UK and Europe for the last three years. Prior to this, he spent 11 years with Wells Fargo, responsible for originating senior debt for large institutional clients and listed companies.
