HSBC has agreed to sell its headquarters in Canary Wharf for £772.5 million to a South Korean fund.
It is the third time the skyscraper in the Docklands area of East London has changed hands in as many years. When HSBC sold it to Metrovacesa, the Spanish property group, for £1.1 billion in 2007, it was the UK’s most expensive building. HSBC was to buy it back a year later.
The National Pension Service (NPS)of Korea first expressed an interest in snapping up the building in September. The $200 billion (£125 billion) state pension fund had already declared plans for a global property-buying spree and said the tower, which houses 8,000 staff in about 1.1 million sq ft of floor space, was among a number of trophy assets that it was considering buying in London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
HSBC, which moved into the building in 2002, will continue to pay an annual £46 million rent for the next 17 and a half years.
In 2007, the bank entered into a sale and leaseback deal with Metrovacesa for £1.09 billion. As part of the agreement, HSBC lent the Spanish company £810 million.
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After Metrovacesa ran into difficulties paying back the loan as the credit crisis unfolded, HSBC took back ownership of the building in December 2008 for £838 million, resulting in a gain of approximately £250 million.
Yesterday’s announcement will see NPS purchase a 998-year leasehold interest. It could also raise doubts over HSBC’s long-term commitment to London, as the bank’s chief executive, Michael Geoghegan, has moved from London to Hong Kong to concentrate on emerging markets. But Stephen Green, HSBC’s group chairman, remains based in London, where the bank will continue to be regulated.
A spokesman for the bank said yesterday: “There is no plan to move; the headquarters remains in London.”
The deal will boost HSBC’s balance sheet by about £350 million on completion, expected to be before the end of the year.
Ken Harvey, the chief technology and services officer, said: “We actively manage our global real estate portfolio in accordance with the needs of our businesses and in the interests of our shareholders, and we are delighted the National Pension Service of Korea will be our new landlord.”
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The deal is the latest in a series of big acquisitions by foreign investors in UK commercial property this year. Land Securities completed the sale of a 33 per cent stake in its Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham last week after agreeing a deal with Australia Future Fund for £210 million.
British Land also concluded the sale of a 50 per cent stake in Broadgate Estates near Liverpool Street in London to Blackstone, the American private equity group — a deal that valued the development at £2.1 billion.