Qataris Add to London Property Portfolio With Acquisition of Canary Wharf

Qatari investors have successfully bid an impressive £2.6 billion to buy London’s Canary Wharf. After months of negotiations it was announced today that the Wharf’s majority owner Songbird Estates had begrudgingly accepted the bid put forward by that Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), along with U.S. group Brookfield Property Partners.

The path to today’s acquisition has not been a smooth one. An independent valuation had initially priced Songbird Estates at 381p-a-share in November and they last year rejected an offer of £2.2 billion (295p-per-share) to buy a majority stake in the company, telling its shareholders to follow its lead. In accepting the bid today Songbird Estates have settled for the offer of 350p-a-share, emphasising in their statement that they still believed this was an under evaluation: “The offer does not reflect the full value of the business, its unique operating platform and its prospects.”

While Songbird Estates owned the majority stake in the Canary Wharf Group (CWG) - which owns the Docklands estate - Brookfield owns 22% of CWG and QIA owns a 28.6%, making it the company’s biggest shareholder.

After a three-month back-and-forth, Songbird have today urged their three other shareholders -  Glick, China Investment Corp and Morgan Stanley Investment Management - to accept the offer. This would mean QIA and Brookfield would command over 85% of Songbird’s shares.

The new acquisition further expands Qatar’s London property portfolio. Starting in 2008 the al-Thani royal family and the country's various investment arms have snapped up some well-known properties in the UK capital including luxury department store Harrods and the entire Olympic village in Stratford. Other locations include most of the Shard skyscraper and half of the world’s most expensive apartment block, One Hyde Park, located in Knightsbridge.

Other purchases in recent years include over a quarter of the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, 8% of the London Stock Exchange and almost 7% of Barclays bank.