TH Real Estate to sell Coutts HQ

440-Strand-THUMB.jpegTH Real Estate has put up for sale one of the largest assets to be held by any UK open-ended real estate fund.

TH Real Estate, which manages the fund on behalf of Henderson UK, has appointed Michael Elliott to market 440 Strand, WC2, for £220m – a 3.75% yield.

The 180,480 sq ft headquarters of Coutts & Co, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, includes 138,290 sq ft of office and banking space and 42,190 sq ft of retail and restaurant space.

The property is being sold by Henderson’s £3.9bn UK Property PAIF, which last week halted trading in the fund owing to a large number of redemptions caused by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

The sale is in a similar vein to those being made by Aberdeen Asset Management, which is selling its two largest assets from its open-ended UK real estate fund in order to pay back redemptions.

From yesterday: Aberdeen to sell its largest UK property to pay redemptions >> 

Explainer: What’s going wrong with open-ended retail funds? >>

440 Strand was bought by TH Real Estate from Legal & General for £175m in 2014. The asset was previously bought by Legal & General from Telereal Trillium as part of the £550m Hyperion portfolio earlier the same year.

TH Real Estate is also selling West End office block Ryder Court in St James’s, SW1, through Colliers International. It bought the 70,887 sq ft block in 2013 for £82m.

Michael Elliott declined to comment. TH Real Estate and Henderson were unavailable for comment.

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