QATAR TO BUY HSBC’S GLOBAL HQ FOR 1.1BN

October 27, 2014 4:35 pm

Arash Massoudi, Kate Allen and Henny Sender

(c)Bloomberg

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to buy HSBC’s global
headquarters, London’s biggest and most expensive office building,
in the latest sign that the global financial capital’s commercial
property market is still strong.

The Qatar Investment Authority will pay just over £1.1bn to Korea’s
National Pension Service for the building, said people familiar with
the matter.

The price just tops the previous record for the Canary Wharf tower,
which was bought by Spanish property company Metrovacesa for
£1.09bn in 2006. HSBC had to take ownership back in-house in 2008
after Metrovacesa got into financial difficulties. It later sold the
building to Korean pension fund NPS for nearly £800m.

HSBC has a 13-year lease on the building and is -committed to annual
upward-only inflation-linked rent reviews, said sources familiar with
the tenancy arrangements.

Last year, HSBC ruled out the possibility of relocating its
headquarters to Hong Kong, opting to stay in the UK despite stricter
European restrictions on bankers’ bonuses.

While the deal is the UK’s largest single-building transaction, it is

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress