Even the Pink ’un is trying to make a turn on booming flat prices. Agent DTZ is scouting the South Bank for a new HQ for the Financial Times, to allow the paper to vacate its unlovely offices by Southwark Bridge.
Why? “The one-acre riverfront site could be worth £150 million with permission for 250 flats,” says Stephan Miles-Brown, head of residential development at Knight Frank. That’s twice the price FT owner Pearson paid for the freehold land and the offices in 1987.
Pearson made a fortune at the time by selling the FT’s Bracken House, near St Paul’s, to Japanese developer Ohbayashi for £143 million. A source says Pearson this time wants to sign a joint venture with a developer.
A deal that sees the paper get new offices and Pearson a share of the profits from building flats on the Southwark Bridge plot may seem like a good one. But Pearson needs to take care. One party approached has already rejected the whole idea, saying: “It just didn’t work financially,”
