DONAL O’MAHONY and Tom Quinn, two multimillionaire private Irish investors, have put Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London up for sale with a price tag of £112 million, The Times has learnt.
The pair, who were among the first wave of Irish investors to buy into the commercial property market in London about six years ago, have appointed Hargreaves Goswell Down to sell the building.
The investors stand to net profits of more than £17 million in just three years on the sale, after buying the property for £95 million in 2002. The pair own an estimated £500 million of property in the South East, mainly in London, but gradually are selling their holdings to reinvest in continental Europe, where prices are cheaper.
The most prominent section of Royal Mint Court is the Johnson Smirke Building, which is Grade-II listed and was constructed in the early 1800s as the Royal Mint. It was reconstructed in 1987, retaining the original façade and installing a new steel-frame structure.
Fordgate, a private property group run by the low-profile Gertner brothers, has appointed Savills to sell Cannon Bridge, the headquarters of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, for more than £205 million.
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The news came as Cushman & Wakefield, Healey & Baker (CWHB) said that the amount of empty office space in Central London has dropped to its lowest level for two years. CWHB said that the drop was driven by 1.1 million sq ft of new letting deals in the City of London in the second quarter.
However, in the West End take-up in April and May were the two lowest single-month performances for more than two years. Guy Taylor, from CWHB, said that the decline was because many government departments and public bodies were no longer signing-up for office space in the capital because of the drive to relocate civil servants outside London. Nevertheless, with large lettings to Google and Kaupthing Bank in the pipeline, Mr Taylor said that occupiers were paying better rents for larger amounts of space.
Simon Knights, from Strutt & Parker, a rival property agent, estimates that 1.4 million sq ft of office space is under offer in the West End. He predicted that take-up would beat 2004 levels.