Chinese 'to Buy Chiswick Park'

CIC reported to be paying £800 million for office development

Reports in the financial press are suggesting that a Chinese investment group is about to acquire the Chiswick Park office development.

It is claimed that the China Investment Corporation (CIC) is prepared to pay around £800million in a deal which could be finalised by the end of the month. The current owner, American investment group Blackstone, paid £480 million for the project in 2011.

Blackstone refinanced the Business Park with two loans totalling £600million earlier this year after failing to sell in 2012 for its target price of £800million. It was thought at the time that this signalled its intention to retain the property for some time..

Property Week reports that Building 6 which has been let to Aker Solutions cost Blackstone £45million which they partially recouped by selling excess land which was rezoned for residential.

Both Blackstone and CIC are declining press requests for a comment on the deal.

The Park has over 7,000 employees and buildings are leased to companies including PepsiCo Inc., Tullow Oil Plc, Walt Disney Co., Swarovski and Starbucks and Aker Solutions.

The final office block, Building 7 which will be a 12-storey office block with 334,000 sq ft (31,029 sq m) of lettable space is currently being built. When complete the building could house over 3,000 workers. The scheduled completion date is in December 2014.

Building 7 will bring the total amount of built space on the Park to 1.8 million sq ft (167,225 sq m).



November 11, 2013