Legal & General to Sell London Property for $140 Million

(Bloomberg) -- Legal & General Group Plc, the largest manager of U.K. pension assets, agreed to sell an office building in London’s Midtown district to Orchard Street Investment Management LLP for 85.1 million pounds ($140 million).

The property at 26 Red Lion Square has 104,000 square feet (9,700 square meters) of space and tenants include Cable & Wireless Communications Plc and TSL Education Group Ltd., Orchard Street said today in a statement. Legal & General’s property unit paid about 57 million pounds for the building in 2010, the company said at the time. It spent 7 million pounds refurbishing the building, according to the statement.

The district “is set for further growth, supported by the proliferation of businesses moving to Midtown and the forthcoming Crossrail station which will be opening just a short walk away,” Gary Felce, a partner at Orchard Street, said in the statement. London-based Orchard Street manages 3.3 billion pounds of U.K. commercial real estate.

Offices in Midtown, stretching from Tottenham Court Road in the west to Farringdon Road in the east, produced higher returns for investors than the rest of central London in the first half of 2013, Farebrother Ltd. said in September. Improvements to London’s public transport have made the area more attractive to tenants, the broker said.

Savills Plc advised Legal & General, according to the statement. Cushman & Wakefield Inc. acted for Orchard Street.

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