Tags
cabot square, Canary Wharf, Gaw Capital Partners, goldman sachs, london stock exchange, Nathan Kirsh, Qatar Investment Authority, real-estate
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to buy Credit Suisse’s Canary Wharf headquarters as it expands further into London commercial property.
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is understood to have placed 1 Cabot Square under offer for around £330m in a sale-and-leaseback deal with the Swiss bank.
QIA is already Credit Suisse’s second biggest shareholder with a stake of 6pc and owns 28pc of Songbird, the majority owner of Canary Wharf Group.
The deal for the 540,000 sq ft building is the latest example of overseas investors targeting London as a safe haven with the eurozone riddled with economic uncertainty.
A Hong Kong-based investor, Gaw Capital Partners, is also thought to be exploring a deal for Goldman Sachs’ London offices at Peterborough Court.
In December, South African investor Nathan Kirsh bought Tower 42 in the City for £282.5m, while the FTSE 100 property company Hammerson sold the former site of the London Stock Exchange for £176m to Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund.
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