Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate is effectively paying €45m to acquire Gardner House, Wilton Street, Dublin. They had exposure to this asset beforehand in the form of two loans secured by a mortgage over the property. They have agreed with the borrower that the fund will take title to the property in exchange for the forgiveness of the debt. At the purchase price, the property has a net initial yield of 6.7%. The borrower had paid €82.1m for the property in 2006. The face value of the loan, that KWE paid €45m for in November 2014, was €74.8m.
Gardner House is a 75,600 sq ft office building located on Wilton Place, which they describe as a prime Dublin office location between Baggot Street and Leeson Street being less than two kilometres from Dublin City Centre. The property is let in its entirety to PWC and was its headquarters prior to PWC’s move to One Spencer Dock, Dublin 1. The unexpired lease term is 3.8 years to December 2018. The property was comprehensively refurbished in 2010 and has been sublet to LinkedIn for the remaining lease term and serves as its European headquarters. It also benefits from an unimplemented planning consent to extend the building by 42,000 sq ft including a new façade.
KWE : Kennedy Wilson buys Dublin offices