News

LONDON, UK, Mar. 19, 2013 – Harbert Management Corporation (Europe), LLC (“HMC (Europe)”), as advisor to Harbert European Real Estate Fund III, LP and its affiliates, is pleased to announce the sale of Chiswick Tower to Hermes Real Estate for £56.5 million through a corporate transaction.

The property consists of a 143,000 square foot, 18 storey multi-let office building in Chiswick, W4. At the time of acquisition, the property had a weighted average unexpired lease term of approximately 4.8 years. As part of the business plan, the lease with the main tenant, the British Standards Institution (“BSI”), was re-geared to a 15 year fixed term with the landlord taking back some underutilized space creating an overall vacancy rate of approximately 17%. Thereafter, the property underwent a capital expenditure program, managed by Canmoor Asset Management, to upgrade the common areas and systems within the building in order to upgrade the premises to modern standards and improve its attractiveness to third party tenants.

“Today’s investment environment dictates that asset selection is as important as it has ever been and to be successful you need to have true real estate skills to create an institutional product,” said Scott O’Donnell, Senior Managing Director of HMC (Europe). ”With Chiswick Tower, we were able to significantly outperform our leasing expectations in terms of rental levels and timing with the building 100% occupied at disposal. This transaction is a good example of where experienced real estate investors can add value to buildings even in a low growth environment.”

HMC (Europe) was advised by Tudor Toone and Wragge & Co.

Harbert Management Corporation (“HMC”) is an alternative asset investment management firm with approximately $3 billion in assets under management. Additional information about HMC can be found at www.harbert.net.

Click here for the full press release.