Livingstones 'close to big sale'

LONDON & Regional Properties, the property vehicle of multi-millionaire entrepreneurs Ian and Richard Livingstone, is considering one of the West End's largest property sales of the year.

The brothers' private company is poised to sell the 160,000 square foot landmark head office of the Food Standards Agency at 125 Kingsway to Strategic Real Estate Advisors (StratREAL) for up to £100m.

The Food Standard Agency occupies all 130,000 square feet of offices in Aviation House, having signed a quasi-PFI deal with L&R to lease the scheme in 1999. Sainsbury's occupies the ground floor with a small 'local' format store.

According to Estates Gazette, a source close to the deal said that the Livingstones and StratREAL chairman Pierre Rolin have been in direct talks for some time but that 'the deadline for the deal is in the next couple of weeks'.

'The offer from StratREAL was good. Because no agents were involved, the market has not found out that the building was in play so there has been no bidding war. The covenant of the tenants and the structure of the lease to the Government has meant that the value of the building is secure.'

L&R completed the redevelopment of Aviation House in 2001, having bought the building in 1997 from Royal Mail pension fund Hermes for £12m.

In 1999, it had tried to pre-let the building at the then market rent of about £32 a square foot but chose to go down the PFI route to retain the long-term value of the building with Government income. Strat-REAL was not available for comment.

StratREAL is a global investment and finance advisory business, representing some of the world's wealthiest private investors and family trusts. Its London base is in Jermyn Street.

Targeting off-market, high-profile acquisitions, since 1998 it has carried out £2bn of deals and manages over £2.1bn of assets.

The deal for Aviation would be its largest investment this year. Earlier this year the Livingstone brothers bought 12 acres of land on the Greenwich Peninsula, less than a mile from the Millennium Dome, through their London & Regional Properties group for about £50m. The area is expected to be used for a mixed residential and commercial scheme.