Royal Bank of Scotland has instructed CB Richard Ellis to sell a major headquarters building linked to satellite broadcaster BSkyB at First Central in Park Royal, north west London, writes CoStar news editor Paul Norman.
The building has been empty since being completed in 2007 by London & Regional on behalf of a syndicate of investors called the Gold 10 Ltd Partnership.
A spokesman for L&R confirmed that RBS, which is understood to have provided around £40m of debt to the syndicate to fund the development of the 162,413 sq ft offices, had appointed CBRE to take the building to market. The guide price is £15m.
The syndicate raised around £16m of its own equity in 2005 to fund the development.
London & Regional and drinks giant Diageo, which occupies a 170,000 sq ft headquarters at the site, are proposing to develop a 1.25m sq ft scheme at First Central. The site was formerly home to the Guinness manufacturing plant.
The sale raises questions about ongoing talks to lease the entire building to BSkyB in one of the largest office lettings in west London in recent years.
BSkyB, advised by Hanover Green, is weighing up a move from offices at Greenhill’s Horizons West in Brentford where it is subleasing space from GlaxoSmithKline. Both the sublease and head lease expire at the end of the year.
Market sources suggested that while BSkyB remains in negotiations to move to First Central, it was now likely to remain at Horizons West for the time being before occupying a Stanhope-led expansion of its 13 acre home at Osterley near Brentford.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt this week provisionally backed a merger between BSkyB and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
CBRE advises RBS; Hanover Green advises BSkyB; Cushman & Wakefield and Andrews Denford & Boyd are letting agents at First Central; Jones Lang LaSalle advised Greenhills.
CoStar Finance 