London landmarks in £112m sale

A SLICE of Piccadilly Circus, including the Criterion Theatre and attached Marco Pierre White restaurant, have been sold to a mystery foreign investor in a £112m property deal.

Developer Minerva has exchanged contracts for the 250,000-square foot leasehold site which boasts as tenants sports store Lillywhites and secretive management consultants McKinsey, whose list of alumni include former Tory leader William Hague.

The deal, expected to complete within six weeks once freeholder Crown Estates gives its consent, will give its new owner a yield of 5.5% net of the 15% levy on rental income payable to Crown Estates. But McKinsey, which occupies half the space, has a break clause in two years.

The Criterion and Criterion Brasserie is Minerva's third trophy asset disposal in as many months, raising £310 million for the debt-ridden developer. Minerva bought the site for £101.4m in 2000.

Executive chairman Andrew Rosenfeld aborted an auction for the whole company in March after a six-month auction which resulted in no-one willing to pay the £530m asking price.

Selling agents on this deal, Franc Warwick, also managed Minerva's £135m sale of 135 High Holborn and a £60m sale of the old Paribas building on Wigmore Street. Minerva is now marketing, via the same agency, the United Business Media HQ at Ludgate House for a minimum £230m.