Tristan Capital Partners purchase Birmingham’s Cube

Tristan Capital Partners, the London-based real estate investment management company, has completed the purchase of the iconic Cube building in Birmingham, sources revealed yesterday.

The property – designed by Ken Shuttleworth of Make Architects, the man behind London’s ‘Gherkin’ – was bought for a rumoured £37m, representing an initial net yield of 8.42% for previous owners Aruna Projects LLP.

A multi-purpose investment, The Cube is spread over 215,785 sq ft, including 111,000 sq ft of offices and 64,000 sq ft of retail, as well as a hotel, residential suites, leisure facilities and dedicated parking capacity.

Tristan beat both Legal & General Property and Mansford and Palmer Capital to the acquisition of the 25-storey tower, completed in 2010 at a total cost of £100m.

The European Property Investors Special Opportunities 3 (EPISO3) Fund, who were advised by Tristan, raised €170m in commitments just days before the completion of the purchase, and are targeting a total equity volume of €750m.

EPISO3 engineered an early first close on December 6^th to secure exclusivity on the transaction, whilst another chunk of funding has been set aside for the imminent completion of a further purchase in Germany.

Cameron Spy, head of investments at Tristan said: “The Cube is a good fit for EPISO3’s strategy of targeting properties with the potential for producing strong value added/opportunistic investment returns with astute asset management and on the back of our conviction that currently depressed European economies will recover over time.”

Earlier in the year, Search Office Space reported that the project had been in administration for over two years as banks failed to agree a funding package with developers.

Birmingham – the UK’s second city with a population of 1,073,000 – was ranked in amongst the top 50 global locations for office space this year, and is set for further regeneration across the city centre.

Photo courtesy of Andy Iosifescu