The new Irish owners of Battersea Power Station are looking to raise more than £100 million in a share placing to kick-start construction on the landmark site left derelict for 25 years.
Real Estate Opportunities (REO), the AIM-listed company majority owned by the Dubliners Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, put out a short statement to the London Stock Exchange today that it was looking to place new shares “to raise cash to pursue its property development programme”.
The largest development site belonging to REO is Battersea Power Station, bought just before Christmas for £400 million within days of Wandsworth council granting the 36 acre riverside site planning permission to build luxury flats.
Property sources told Timesonline that REO is looking to raise “over £100 million” and the funds would be used to accelerate development plans for Battersea.
The site has been a waste land for the past 25 years ever since the power station stopped generating electricity.
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Various new owners have tried and failed to develop the site ranging from botched attempts to turn it into a theme park to plans to turn it into a shopping centre, which never got off the ground.
REO, which is 58 per cent owned by Treasury Holdings, the private development company belonging to Mr Ronan and Mr Barrett, bought the site from Victor Hwang, the Hong Kong developer, promising that they would press ahead with plans to transform the site into a vibrant mixed use site.
Today REO said that it was buying from Treasury “certain properties” in exchange for REO shares “and a corresponding placing of new ordinary shares will be undertaken with third party investors to raise cash to pursue its property development programme”.
REO paid £250 million in cash for Battersea, funded by its own money and debt from Bank of Scotland. It paid the balance of the purchase price through the issue of £150 million in loan notes to Oriental Property, Mr Hwang’s business which controlled Parkview International, the older owner of Battersea Power Station.
The site came with an existing masterplan for a mix of housing, hotels, shopping and leisure but REO is thought to have worked up revised plans with more of an emphasis on housing.