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Qataris Bet on London Real Estate
June 18
According to Bloomberg news , Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has been buying up some of the highest quality properties in London, as the Persian Gulf country takes advantage of lower prices and the pound's weakness to invest its gas wealth.
Barwa Real Estate Co., controlled by the fund, yesterday agreed to buy Park House for 250 million pounds ($370 million). The office and retail project is the biggest development in about 40 years on London's Oxford Street, a major shopping district in Central London.
The fund also bought the famed London's Harrods department store last month and in 2009 became the largest investor in Songbird Estates Plc, which owns most of the Canary Wharf office estate.
"If you can get prestige assets at a bargain price, why not?" said Fadi Moussalli, regional director for Middle East and North Africa at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. "Qataris are shrewd buyers and are opportunistically looking for deals."Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. bought the U.S. embassy building on Grosvenor Square in November, continuing to lease the building to the U.S. government.
"The U.K. has been and remains an important market for Qatari Diar and QIA," John Watts, a spokesman for Qatari Diar, said by phone yesterday from the capital, Doha. He wouldn't comment on possible bids for the Savoy or Grosvenor House hotels, two of the best known luxury hotels in central London.
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