Queensgate, which advises on circa £500m of equity capital and is a joint venture between Jason Kow, formerly head of special situation investments at London & Regional, and LJ Group, a multi-family office with c.$6.5bn of assets under management from approximately 200 families, exchanged contracts in July to buy the shares in Executive Offices Group.
Executive Offices Group, a serviced office provider in central London, has a portolio of 28 centres assembled over the last 17 years, including trophy assets such as 78/79 Pall Mall, 33 St James’s Square and 1 Cornhill. The business has 3,000 customers ranging from blue chip corporates to small start-ups, with an average length of stay of 32 months. 2012 EBITDA was c.£20m and the business has identified a number of expansion opportunities to drive future growth.
Canaccord Genuity has been advising MSREF since December 2012 and began the sales process in March. The business attracted significant interest from private equity, family office, institutional and trade buyers. Following a number of strong second round bids received in mid-June, Queensgate was given a brief period in order to complete confirmatory due diligence and sign transaction documentation, moving to completion on 30 August upon arrangement of financing.
Canaccord Genuity Real Estate was also involved with the Marriott Hotels and Malmaison /Hotel du Vin transactions in February and March this year. The Canaccord Genuity team was led by Edward Arkus and Robert Orr with support from Nancy Zhang, Nick Smith, Alex Trevor and Josh Johnson on the M&A side and Andrew Lynn with Julia Perroni on the debt advisory side.
Source: James Buckley, CoStar News