Allsop and Millennium Group acquire 5 Fleet Place for Hong Kong Investor

Hong Kong-based Manhattan Garments Group has completed the acquisition of 5 Fleet Place, London, EC4 from Poly Global.

The value of the transaction is circa £191,000,000, which reflects a net initial yield of around 4%. Manhattan acquired 100% of the shares in the Jersey Company that owns the asset.

A part of the Fleet Place Estate, 5 Fleet Place comprises a 130,500 sq. ft. building built by British Land in 2007 and has been the headquarters of law firm Charles Russell Speechlys ever since. Poly Global acquired the building from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in January 2016 and has since deployed £4 million towards the refurbishment of the lower part of the property, which has been instrumental in attracting occupiers, like fintech giant PayPal and accounting firm Wilson Wright.

Poly originally instructed JLL to sell 5 Fleet Place in 2020 but postponed the sales process due to COVID-19. The building was relaunched again at the end of 2021, as the City of London investment market came back to life and started to see strong interest from across the globe.

5 Fleet Place marks Manhattan’s debut standalone acquisition in London, while its previous transaction in the capital in 2018 – 30 Gresham Street, EC2 – was in partnership with Wing Tai. Allsop and Millennium Group’s ongoing representation of Asian capital surpasses £2 billion of inbound capital into the UK, and the duo will asset and property manage 5 Fleet Place along with Mapp. The JV now manages over £3.25 billion on behalf of Asian investors.

Allsop, Millennium Group, Mayer Brown and Deloitte advised Manhattan, whilst JLL, CBRE, Taylor Wessing, and EY Global acted on behalf of Poly.

James Tien of Manhattan Garments Group said: “5 Fleet Place is the type of high-quality investment we want to be making in London. The building has extremely strong credentials: its excellent base build, strong tenancy profile and longer-term reversionary potential make it a very attractive long-term investment for us.”

Christopher Room, Partner at Allsop, said: “5 Fleet Place is a landmark building that provides exceptional office space in one of the world’s leading business hotspots. Given our long-standing expertise, alongside our partners at Millennium Group, in helping Asian investors make inroads in the capital, it has been a pleasure supporting Manhattan in acquiring this prime asset.

5 Fleet Place is one of many landmark transactions to complete during the first quarter of 2022, showing that despite travel corridor restrictions, appetite from Asian investors for real estate in central London is still incredibly strong, especially for high-quality income-producing assets.”