Taiwan鈥檚 third-largest insurance company Shin Kong Life has made its first real estate investment in London.
Real Estate Advisers has confirmed that it has sold 40 Gracechurch Street in the City of London for 拢136m (鈧�187m).
Shin Kong Life that it would make its debut investment in London as part of a $1bn international investment programme.
The deal makes Shin Kong the third Taiwanese insurance company to invest in London recently, following in the footsteps of its bigger rivals and .
Cornerstone, real estate arm of US insurer MassMutual, bought the building for an institutional investor in 2013 for 拢94m, 拢42m below the price paid by Shin Kong.
More than half of the 122,494sqft office building was vacant when Cornerstone bought it. In August this year, it became fully let when Hampden Capital took the fifth floor on a 10-year lease.
Darren Hutchinson, senior director of Cornerstone Europe, said: 鈥淭his transaction marks the conclusion of what has been a very successful investment and represents our first full turnaround of a large scale London office asset.
鈥淗aving acquired the property just over two years ago, we transformed 40 Gracechurch Street from a half-empty and underperforming asset into a fully-let, prime institutional-quality City of London office, backed by strong covenants providing high quality income.鈥�
Nick Pink, CIO of Cornerstone Europe, said: 鈥淲e will continue to consider London opportunities together with those across Europe as we redeploy sales proceeds on behalf of our client.鈥�
