EPF sells London office property for RM985 million

The pension fund has sold several overseas properties over the past couple of years, including office and industrial complexes in Australia.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has sold a London office property to Hong Kong-based Chinese Estates for £175 million (RM985 million).

CBRE Group, an American commercial real estate company, which advised Chinese Estates said the EPF sold the 80,000 sq ft building at 11/12 St James’s Square at a net initial yield of 4.45%.

Savills Investment Management handled the sale for the EPF.

According to IPE Real Estate, this sale by the EPF comes two years after it sold its One Sheldon Square office property in London’s Paddington district to listed property company British Land for £210m.

IPE Real Estate quoted Kamarulzaman Hassan, EPF’s head of global real estate, as telling it last year that the EPF was constantly looking at market conditions, “and if we can profit from a sale, we will do so to deploy the funds elsewhere”.

He told IPE Real Estate that EPF had sold two industrial assets in Melbourne for A$640 million last year.

The EPF is also reported to have recently sold another property in Australia in which it had 80% share.

South Korea’s Mirae Asset Financial bought the office complex at 50 Marcus Clarke Street in Canberra, Australia, for A$321 million.

The EPF owned 80% of the office tower, which it bought jointly in 2012 with Singapore-based fund manager, CIMB TrustCapital, for around A$226m.

The complex had been used by a federal government department on a long-term lease.

Apart from the EPF, several Malaysian GLCs and firms have been offloading overseas properties. It is believed that they want to bring back the money to Malaysia to stimulate the economy.

In August 2015, it was reported that the EPF had invested more than £1 billion in properties in the UK and more than 1 billion euros in France and Germany since 2008. -FMT