Canary Wharf Office Sold for the Third Time by HSBC
In a major deal completed recently, HSBC will sell its
The bank first sold the Docklands East London skyscraper for £1b to Madrid-based property company Metrovacesa in 2007. However, Metrovacesa faced problems with loan repayment owing to credits crunch in the market, and HSBC brought the building back from the company a year after it was sold.
The National Pension Service entered into discussions for the purchase of the building way back in September, as it felt the building would help them to spread their business globally.
Even after its sale to the Korean property group, the building will continue to remain the office address of HSBC that will pay a yearly rent of about £45m for the next 17 years to NPS.
The building has added value to the market portfolio of NPS by almost nine hundred percent. Its purchase has thus been quite profitable for the company. However, the sale has presented HSBC in poor light, as clients have started fearing that the group’s headquarters will move to a different location after the sale.
A spokesperson for HSBC however clarified that the bank has no plans to change its business location, and will continue to operate from the building. The deal will fetch a profit of £350m for HSBC, which will be reflected in the annual bank sheet by December 2009.
The deal follows the trend of overseas companies buying premium commercial desk space in the
