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Chinese Insurer Buys Major Building In London's City District For $494 Million
Tom Burroughes
23 January 2015
The real estate arm of Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, acting on behalf of its open-ended property fund grundbesitz europa, has sold Tower Place in London’s City financial district to Ping An Life Insurance for around £327 million ($494 million). The London office, designed by renowned UK architect Sir Norman Foster, was acquired by DeAWM in September 2003 and comprises 385,000 square feet. The main tenant is international consultancy Marsh & McLennan Companies. The open-ended real estate fund grundbesitz europa has a total asset value of €4.193 billion. This includes a portfolio of 49 properties, 39 of which are outside Germany including six within the UK, Deutsche Bank, parent of DeAWM, said in a statement yesterday. “We have owned this property since 2003 and it has outperformed our expectations,” said James Petit, head of real estate, UK and Ireland for DeAWM. “Selling has allowed us to capitalise on the interest in London and we will now refresh and rebalance the fund’s UK portfolio. We are already looking at a substitute target asset,” he added. The real estate arm of DeAWM oversees $46.8 billion of assets worldwide (as of 30 September last year).