Irish firm pays €51m for London offices

InvestmentsIrish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) has paid €51 million for an office building in the City of London.

Agreement in principle has been reached to acquire 23 Austin Friars, which is now fully let to high calibre tenants on a 15-year lease. The yield on the 5,110sq m (55,000sq ft) building is 5 per cent, indicating a rent roll of €2.6 million. The purchase was made on behalf of Irish Life private clients.

Number 23 Austin Friars was constructed in 1888 and designed by luminary architect Sir Aston Webb whose other works include the main façade of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria and Albert museum.

Following a full refit by Exemplar Properties, the building offers flexible floorplates - around a central atrium - of 418sq m (4,500sq ft) to 836sq m (9,000sq ft) in a location that places it among the principal blue chip organisations in the city.

The Dutch Church is located to the east and private gardens to the west. Knight Frank and DTZ acted for the vendors/lessors of the property.

Last February, ILIM appointed Hillary Fitzgibbon as head of structured property.

Fitzgibbon had previously worked at Bank of Ireland Private Banking where she had been one of the bank's key deal-makers in recent years.

"The property investment market is becoming increasingly sophisticated and there is a very strong demand for the development of syndicated property deals for high net worth individuals in particular," said Gerry Keenan, chief executive of ILIM.

"This is a key area for Irish Life going forward and we will aggressively pursue opportunities for such deals here and abroad. Already we anticipate that our property funds will receive investment inflows of as much as €1 billion this year. And as we begin to roll out more specialist deals we expect this figure to rise further."

Fitzgibbon was responsible for landing many of Bank of Ireland Private Banking's key property deals in the last few years including: the IT Tower in Brussels for €72 million (a 23,000sq m/247,570sq ft multi-let office building in the Louise area of Brussels); Windsor House in London for £109 million (office building in the Victoria area of London let to Transport for London); Stuten 12 in Stockholm for €130 million (a multi-let office building in the central business district of Stockholm); and a 50 per cent interest in the Stadsfeestzaal shopping centre being developed in Antwerp.