H&M owner buys Regent Street office space

Stefan Persson, Swedish billionaire and owner of H&M, has bought retail and office space in the prime of London’s Regent Street for £225million.

It has been reported that the billionaire agreed upon the purchase late last week and that the property already comes with high-class tenants, such as Banana Republic, H&M and Armani Exchange.

It seems that some believe that this sale marks a sudden surge of demand for London office space and highlights an increased amount of consumer spending.

Mr Persson, whose fortune is approximately £14.4 billion which puts him in the top 20 richest people in the world, bought the Regent Street block through his private property company Ramsbury. This company are experts in the purchase of class-A commercial properties all around the world.

The building was bought from the property investment group Delancey and it is thought that the deal will be very profitable for the company. This is because the sale to Mr. Persson was at a price more than double what Delancey paid for the site.

A company representative said that the purchase price was so high that they could not see how Mr. Persson was going to make any money. In fact property experts have predicted that he will only see a 4.75% return on his investment.

Initially Delancey had a £100million plan to develop three shops of 40,000 square-feet, 80,00 square-feet of office  space and 12 luxury flats however now that the building has been sold it is unclear what Mr. Persson has planned for the site.