Big-spending Great Portland Estates today splashed out £60 million on a major property on the South Bank, its first big deal since raising £140 million from investors a month ago.
Chief executive Toby Courtauld, pictured, has £400 million to spend, although the swoop for Minerva House — on the South Bank near Borough Market and Southwark Cathedral — falls outside the company’s traditional West End heartland.
The block, originally built for Anglo-Indian bank Grindlays in the 1980s, is now let to law firm Winckworth Sherwood as well as pollsters Ipsos Mori, and generates £3.4 million a year in rent. But the building also contains flats, leaving open the possibility of a residential redevelopment.
Courtauld said: “Longer term, this river-fronting site provides us with significant development potential.”
The company has spent £600 million since its first fund-raising in 2009 as it looks to snap up bargains mainly in the West End market.
