Peterson Group has put its Ampersand Building in Soho up for sale for £250m.
The Hong Kong company has appointed Cushman & Wakefield to sell the 89,337 sq ft building at 178 Wardour Street, W1. The price reflects a blended net initial yield of 3.05%.
King.com, the company behind the Candy Crush Saga game, leased the entire 67,791 sq ft of offices in the building in September last year. It has 8.7 years left on its lease and pays an annual rent of £5.3m per year, equating to £77.50 per sq ft.
The 21,546 sq ft of retail space is let to the Perfume Shop, Lloyds, CJ & Clark, Carphone Warehouse, Pret a Manger and Ryman. The shops have an average unexpired lease term of 7.15 years and bring in rent of £2.5m per year.
The building is now under-rented and has reversionary potential, with rents in the area between £95 per sq ft and £100 per sq ft, according to C&W analysis shown in the sale documentation. The brochure also outlines the potential to revamp the building’s retail space to create three larger shops more suitable to current demand. This could add a further £70m of value to Ampersand.
The building is near Tottenham Court Road station, where Crossrail will be operational from 2018, and Facebook’s new headquarters, which landlord Great Portland Estates is in discussions with Deka to sell for around £450m.
Yesterday: GPE tees up sale of Facebook HQ
A deal at the proposed price would see Peterson realise a substantial profit. It forward funded Ampersand in 2013 in a £121m deal with developer Resolution shortly ahead of its completion.
Since then Peterson, spearheaded by managing director Tony Yeung, has further established its presence in the UK. It has since backed residential developer Hadley Property Group, Queensgate Investments, taken full ownership of the Great Northern Warehouse in Manchester and bought a 20% stake in its investment partner LJ Partnership.
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