Property company Grosvenor is launching a second London office fund, according to a report in newspaper The Independent. Grosvenor, which is owned by the Duke of Wellington, is launching a new fund allegedly worth over two hundred million pounds in order to take advantage of the currently fairly low level of available office space in the city by refurbishing old buildings.
Grosvenor's existing office fund is worth four hundred million pounds, which was recently refinanced with Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, while the new fund will apparently run for the next seven years, finishing in 2017, and redeveloping old properties into providers of executive office space, done in partnership with other companies if and when appropriate.
The original Grosvenor London Office Fund (GLOF) already has four Grade A assets to its name, 10 Grosvenor Street, which is a joint venture with Hammerson, and Almack House, Belgrave House, and 40 Grosvenor Place, all of which are prime office buildings located in the SW1 sector of the city.
Mervyn Howard, the UK head of the Grosvenor fund management, believes that the fund is set to experience major growth because of the shortfall in office space in London, and the increasing cost of rent, and has already begun looking for overseas partners to invest in the scheme. Howard says that figures show that at present, there is just over twenty three and a half million square feet of office space in the whole of London, just under nineteen and a half million of which is in the West End.
