KKR to invade Mayfair with new London headquarters
The “Barbarians at the Gate” are moving to a new home in Mayfair after London landlord Great Portland Estates lured private equity giants KKR to Hanover Square on Monday.
KKR — the buyout firm immortalised in print by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar after it won the battle to control RJR Nabisco in the Eighties — is taking up 57,000 square feet of space in GPE’s new offices, to be built over the eastern entrance to Crossrail’s new Bond Street station.
The move, which marks the biggest single deal in Mayfair for a decade, sees KKR move from its present home in St James’s.
GPE chief executive Toby Courtauld said: “It is such a difficult market to read at the moment. But good quality space will let and there is not much of it around at the moment, particularly in the West End, which means that a lot of it is pre-letting. But negotiations are tough and they are taking time.”
The pre-let allows GPE to commit itself to building the offices, as well as further shops, flats and restaurants around Hanover Square and New Bond Street with a gross development value thought to be close to £1 billion.
