Sirosa close to completing one of West End’s largest office deals

The German family investment vehicle is looking to purchase their second large office deal within months. Sirosa, who is acting on behalf of Conley Family, are close to completing one of the largest West End office deals ever, as they look to spend £610 million to purchase Shell-Merx House at 80 strand WC2 for a net initial yield of 4.2%. 

The 12-floor office building offers 550,000 square feet of office space with some of the largest floor plates in the West End. The building stands on the north bank of the River Thames and currently houses 12 tenants including; Vodafone, Shell, Pearson and Omnicom to provide a rent roll of around £25 million a year of which 60% is provided from Pearson.

The current landlord, Westbrook bought the building back in 2007 for £494 million at a yield of 5.15% from Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz, David and Simon Reuban and Jack Dellal. 

Sirosa recently made headlines when they purchased the £225 million Kensington Roof Gardens building in May, seeing off 8 rival bids, all of whom bid over the guiding £200 million value. They also own the former Barkers department store which occupies 150,000 square feet. This latest purchase from the German investment vehicle is one of many this year from international investors, as 75% of West End office transactions were accounted for by overseas investors in the first half of 2013. Alex Goode from Morgan Pryce believes that, ‘Offices in the West End right now are still the focus for large overseas investors with the trend from the back end of 2012 continuing on into the first half of 2013 as the figures shown above.’ 

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