Chiswick Park office space acquired for £480m

US firm Blackstone purchases 1.9m sq ft office park in West London

Article posted: 10 Jan 2011

Fighting off competition from London & Stamford Property, Moorfield, Orchard Street Investment Management and British Land in a joint venture with Oxford Properties, US private equity firm Blackstone is set to purchase Chiswick Park for £480m, representing a projected yield of around 7.5%.

Owned by the Chiswick Park Unit Trust and managed by Aberdeen Asset Management, Schroders and Stanhope, Chiswick Park comprises 1.9m sq ft of Grade A office space in west London.

Chiswick Park’s tenants include Orbis Technology, QVC and Tullow Oil with only 74,166 sq ft currently vacant. Office space in Chiswick and throughout west London is increasingly popular as occupiers seek cheaper rents to those for office space in Central London.

This is Blackstones’s second largest UK purchase following its 2009 £1.1bn investment in offices in the City of London with its 50% stake in the Broadgate complex.

The purchase is in line with reports in November in the Wall Street Journal that US REITs are having to look further afield for property investment opportunities due to the shortage of assets for sale in America. Brookfield Office Properties recently entered into a joint venture with Great Portland Estates to acquire the 100 Bishopsgate scheme in the City. The U.S. REIT paid £43m for 50% ownership of the planned development.

CBRE’s U.K. index of office-building values shows 24% growth in the last year and prices for offices in London in particular have been pushed up by an influx of foreign buyers.

Posted by Jules