London’s heritage sold to the highest bidder

With every year that passes, more and more of London’s property is auctioned off to the highest bidder, usually a foreign company or wealthy family. Over the last six years, more than £100bn of property in London has been sold, with many Londoners expressing differing opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of this, such as how it brings a huge amount of investment that benefits the economy, but also how residents in London are being outpriced by their own city.

Another bone of contention is that London’s key assets are being sold off to the highest bidder and we are in danger of losing our heritage. Harrods could be seen as a prime example of this: it was sold to Quatar Holdings back in 2010 for $2.3bn. Furthermore, Dubai Holdings own The London Eye and the 230-year-old Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, with The Hyde Park Barracks up next; the list goes on.

Another site now up for sale is the Burlington Arcade, which was previously held in a family trust. It is currently owned by Thor Equities and Meyer Bergman, who purchased the Arcade for £104m, and have decided to put the historic site on the market. They have completed refurbishment and restoration works and improved the quality of tenants in the scheme, helping to further increase value. They are hoping to achieve a price of circa £400m and attract high levels of interest from the Middle East, as this is a very rare opportunity to acquire a piece of London’s finest heritage. At 37,000 sq ft, and with over 1,100 sq ft of frontage, the Burlington Arcade is the UK’s longest covered shopping street.

This news was brought to you by Morgan Pryce, a specialist tenant acquisition agent with offices in Oxford Circus and the City. Morgan Pryce specialises in search, negotiation and project management and works exclusively for tenants.