British Steel Pension Fund has reportedly tasked consulting firm CBRE with the sale of a refurbished office in Midtown, London. The UK firm is said to be listening to offers around £93 million.
British Steel was privatised in the 1980s, later merging with a Dutch company to form Corus. The combined entity was then taken over in 2007 by the Indian steel operator Tata, however by late 2017, Tata’s UK arm declared it was no longer able to support the pension scheme – one of the UK’s largest – without becoming insolvent. To that end, its remaining members transferred over to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), a government-backed pensions lifeboat.
Now, as the scheme attempts to further secure its future, the British Steel Pension Fund has announced plans to sell a major property based in the UK’s capital city. 15 Fetter Lane, which British Steel Pension Fund acquired 40 years ago, is a large office building, located between the West End and the City of London.
The property benefits from keystone local amenities and public transport with Blackfriars (Circle and District lines) and Chancery Lane (central line) underground stations and City Thameslink over ground station and Farringdon Crossrail (as of 2019) all within a short walk. Meanwhile, the accommodation itself provides 54,126 square feet of Grade A refurbished space.
According to PropertyEU, the pension fund has commissioned global consultancy CBRE to oversee the sale. The overall passing rent for the property stands at 57.90 per square foot, while being multi-let to six office tenants with an average unexpired lease term of 9.1 years. Current tenants come from a range of sectors, including charities, legal firms and recruitment agencies. CBRE is now looking for offers in excess of £9.5 million.
Commenting on the sale process, James Beckham, a Managing Director at CBRE, said, “Being adjacent to the New Street Square Campus and only a short walk to Farringdon Crossrail, this location has everything going for it. We expect to receive good interest in this prominent freehold asset.”
CBRE recently also oversaw the sale of a large residential site in North Leigh to UK housing builder Countryside. CBRE’s UK development team in Manchester was appointed to market the scheme in February 2018, and was acting on behalf of the North Leigh Park Group.
