Hammerson offloads £135m Docklands office
REAL estate investor Hammerson has sold Docklands office block Exchange Tower to MPGA Europe Fund III for £134.6m.
The sale represents a 74 per cent return on the £77m Hammerson paid for the 16-storey tower in 1999, on top of annual rents of up to £10.7m over the course of its 11-year ownership. Its main tenants include Barclays and the UK government.
The purchased price is £3m more than the property’s valuation in December 2009.
“[The tower] has been a good investment for the company over the last decade. However, I believe the capital can be better deployed in other opportunities,” said Hammerson chief executive David Atkins.
MGPA, an offshoot of Australian proprety group Macquarie, said it will “will make the most of the opportunity to lease vacant space and restructure leases into the recovering Central London office market”.