Moody’s City of London head office on sale for US$445 million

[LONDON] A City of London office building that has been the local headquarters of Moody’s is going on sale, testing investor appetite for trophy real estate in a market where transactions have cooled.

Agents at CBRE Group have been appointed to sell 10 Gresham Street for roughly £330 million (US$445 million), according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing a private process. 

A Malaysian state pension fund bought the property for £200 million in 2012. Representatives for CBRE Group and CBRE Investment Management, which manages the asset, declined to comment. 

London’s office market effectively froze when interest rates started to rise a few years ago. The collapse in transaction volumes has been seen mostly in larger buildings that are typically the preserve of major institutional buyers seeking steady returns. 

While there were signs of a recovery earlier this year, fuelled by optimism that interest rates were set to decline, the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East dashed those expectations, causing some potential sellers to hold off.

Moody’s decided to take up space at 10 Gresham Street two years ago after announcing its exit from Canary Wharf. This was around the same time when several occupants in the eastern business district, including HSBC Holdings and law firm Clifford Chance, were swapping their space for offices in the City of London.

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That trend is now going into reverse, with Deutsche Bank recently agreeing to rent an office in Canary Wharf. BLOOMBERG