Norway Oil Fund Buys Central London Office Property From Union

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund continues to add London real estate to its portfolio with the purchase of a Central London office property. The fund bought the property at 60 Holborn Viaduct from a fund managed by Union Investment Institutional Property GmbH for 321.3 million pounds ($421 million) in cash, Norges Bank Real Estate Management said in a statement on its website. The property comprises 219,000 square feet of office space and 17,000 square feet of retail space across five units, it said. Norway’s wealth fund has continued to invest in the U.K. and London, where it owns large swaths of real estate, including much of Regent Street, unfazed by Brexit. CEO YngveSlyngstad has said the fund’s confidence in London is strong as a financial center and a world capital. The fund has a $26 billion real estate portfolio that it wants to build up to about 7 percent of its assets.