Elliott Management Corp. and Oval Real Estate Ltd. have been selected as the preferred bidders to buy a portfolio of properties from the Langham Estate, a sprawling collection of offices and stores in London’s West End.
The Elliott-backed venture has offered about £360 million ($447 million) to buy real estate including restaurants, bars and apartments from an entity owned by Samuel Tak Lee, people with knowledge of the negotiations said.
Elliott and Oval have been granted an exclusivity period to complete the deal but there’s no certainty the transaction will be completed, the people said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private. A venture backed by Ares Management Corp. also bid to buy the properties, they added.
Representatives for the estate and broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., which is advising on the sale, declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for Ares. Elliott did not immediately respond to emails and calls seeking comment.
Deals for London commercial real estate have cratered since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, as rising interest rates designed to contain runaway inflation created uncertainty about valuations. But with the Bank of England choosing to hold at its latest meeting after a succession of hikes, investors are becoming more confident about underwriting deals, betting financing costs have peaked.
Lee’s Mount Eden Land Ltd. bought the estate out of receivership in 1994. The land was originally owned by the Earl of Oxford before being inherited by the Howard de Walden estate, which continues to own swathes of London’s Marylebone district but sold off the Langham portfolio in 1925.
The estate is spread over 13.8 acres includes 1.3 million square feet of commercial real estate in London’s Fitzrovia district, between Oxford Street and Regent’s Park.
(Corrects story originally published Nov. 15 to clarify that the deal is for part of the properties owned by the Langham Estate)
