By Simon Packard – Jul 28, 2011 3:32 PM GMT+0100
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) sold most of its London headquarters campus to Canary Wharf Group Plc and a unit of Qatars sovereign wealth fund for 300 million pounds ($490 million).
Canary Wharf, which developed the former docks in east London of the same name, and Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. bought Shell Centre to redevelop the 5.25-acre (2.12 hectares) site near Waterloo railroad station into offices, shops and apartments, according to a statement. Shells 27-story office tower at the center of the complex wasnt included.
Shell, Europes largest oil company, will lease one of the buildings planned for the site, taking 210,000 square feet (19,510 square meters) of space. The sale is contingent on the project winning planning approval within three years.
Shell is already a tenant at Canary Wharf, leasing 187,000 square feet at 40 Bank Street on a 15-year contract since June 2010. It pays 37.50 pounds a square foot in rent a year, although it negotiated a three-and- a-half year rental waiver.
Canary Wharf is controlled by Songbird Estate Plc, in which a separate Qatar investment fund owns almost a 28 percent stake. Qatari Diar is wholly owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.
Its the latest real estate acquisition in London by Qatars various funds, which own a stake in the Shard tower, the Chelsea Barracks high-end residential project, Park House on Oxford Street, Harrods department store and the U.S. embassy building in Mayfair.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Packard in London at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at [email protected]
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