Manchester office sell-off continues

Impax Asset Management has put the 100,000 sq ft 40 Spring Gardens up for sale for £60m, the latest in a long line of prime offices in the city which have been brought to market.

A deal at £60m would represent a net initial yield of 5.27%.

Impax has appointed London-based agency Michael Elliot to sell the block.

Aldermore Bank recently leased 12,000 sq ft within the building, at around £31/sq ft.

Langtree founder Bill Ainscough sold 40 Spring Gardens in 2010 to Climate Change Capital’s property fund, now part of Impax, for £45m, one year after buying it from Langtree for less than £24m.

Across the city, Carlyle Group’s 300,000 sq ft office complex at Piccadilly Place is due to be brought to the market this week, with an asking price of around £117m. The asset is made up of Three and Four Piccadilly Place, and a three-storey basement car park.

Carlyle bought the wider complex from Argent in 2007 for around £90m and funded the development of Four Piccadilly Place.

A spokesman from Carlyle Group said: “Three Piccadilly Place is now fully let and Four Piccadilly Place is 75% let. As a result, Piccadilly Place is now a high-quality mature asset which will be very appealing to an institutional investor looking for long term investment opportunity.”

Following the recent sale of 101 Barbirolli Square by Aberdeen Asset Management to AEW for £32m, neighbouring office 100 Barbirolli Square has been put up for sale for £52m.

Owners Moorfield Real Estate and Oaktree Capital Management have appointed CBRE and WHR as joint agents.

The 140,000 sq ft block was bought by the joint venture in 2013 from Aberdeen Asset Management for £41m.

The building is occupied by Addleshaw Goddard and Ernst & Young.