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It can be hard to get your head around the idea of a slice of Knightsbridge between Harrods and Harvey Nichols being a bit run down. Knightsbridge is after all the area of London synonymous with high prices and luxury real estate. But that soft spot existed a decade ago, until a unique opportunity arose, and Chelsfield jumped at it.
In 2010, Irish investor Derek Quinlan was in a fix. He owed a variety of banks more than €2B, and the credit crunch and Irish banking crisis meant that they wanted it repaid yesterday. He had built up a portfolio of trophy assets in a debt-fuelled deal spree between 2004 and 2008, and now he needed to sell.
The Knightsbridge Estate was one of those assets. At 3.5 acres of shops and offices, it was big, the location was one of the most famous in London, but Quinlan and the pension funds that had owned it before him hadn’t invested in its upkeep, and it was looking dowdy.
Chelsfield teamed up with Saudi investor Olayan to pay £580M for the estate, one of the biggest London real estate deals of that year. It was a time of great fear. The financial crisis was still raging, and it was a massive investment in a complex asset. But 10 years…
Read the full story here.
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