British Land To Sell CityPoint

British land, the owner of the Pillar Properties who amongst other things own CityPoint in EC2 in the City of London, look like selling the building which is the third tallest skyscraper in the City with a deal worth more than £500 million smashing the previous record set in 1999 by Greycoat Estates who sold Tower 42 for £226 million in 1998.

British Land had paid £811 million earlier this year for Pillar Properties, clearly seeing an opportunity in a company where the parts were worth more than the whole, and the ever-increasing commercial prices in the City since have made such a sale too big a temptation to resist.

Pillar has over £3 billion of assets of total assets, about a third of the total of British Land. The largest chunk of Pillars holdings is the Hercules Fund that has substantial properties in retail parks and shopping centres in the UK.

The 127 metre tall CityPoint was completed in 2001 and contains 52,672 metres of fully let space, a glowing example of the success of multi-tenanted tall buildings in the City. The scheme is an almost total makeover of Britannic House that was designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects after the original designer Santiago Calatrava dropped out due to concerns about the height of his proposal and his refusal to compromise it.

The former 60s block is the ex international headquarters of oil company BP. It was built by developer Wates City between 1999 and 2001 after they had paid a then record sum for the land - £143 million according to real estate negotiator Stratreal.