Ares has acquired the Copyright Building at 30 Berners Street in London’s Fitzrovia from Germany’s Union Investment
The building, which serves as Netflix’s London headquarters, was sold for a price reportedly in the region of £160m.
Union Investment acquired the 10,000 sq m (circa 108,000 sq ft) building, which comprises office and retail space, in 2017 from Derwent London for £165m. The sale of the Copyright Building marks Union Investment’s second exit in London within the last seven months.
Jacob Thompson, senior investment manager UK and Ireland at Union Investment, said: “Institutional and private capital is increasingly looking to enter Central London. This is a good time to create more room for manoeuvre for our European real estate funds through strategic sales.”
Adam Irányi, head of investment management global at Union Investment, added: “We acquired the Copyright Building immediately after its completion in 2017 with a long-term lease that has provided our private investors with strong and stable cash flow for almost a decade. Given the shortening remaining term of the leases, the timing of the sale is well chosen. We intend to reinvest the capital available from the recent sales and are actively seeking new attractive investment opportunities in London, specifically for our UniImmo: Deutschland fund.”
Wilson Lamont, partner and co-head of European real estate at Ares, said: “We believe the acquisition of the Copyright Building is consistent with our thesis focused on high quality, well-located assets benefiting from the powerful rental growth we have seen in many of the Central London sub-markets.”
Union Investment was advised on the transaction by Savills and Knight Frank.
