Cartier, the luxury French jeweller, has quietly bought 18-19 Albemarle Street in Mayfair for £67.5 million in a move that means its parent company Richemont has assembled a significant ownership with access on to London's exclusive luxury shopping thoroughfare Bond Street.
Just-available Land Registry documents confirm the acquisition from vendor Albalux Development, which bought the 18th century, 11,300-square-foot building in 2018 for £33.52 million. The transaction is understood to have completed within the last year.
Tenants at the building include British fashion designer Amanda Wakeley, jewellers Boodle & Dunthorne and Islandbridge Capital.
The acquisition means Cartier's parent company, the Swiss retailer Richemont, has adjoining ownerships with frontages on Bond Street. In May last year, Richemont, which owns a host of luxury brands, bought 178 New Bond Street for £82 million, nearly triple the £33 million the building previously traded for in 2013. The price reflected a 2.28% yield.
The building is home to luxury jeweller Boodles, which occupies around 3,000 square feet of retail and backs on to 18-19 Albemarle Street. Cartier is also housed in the next door 175-177 New Bond Street, which has an entrance on Albemarle Street. That building is understood to be owned by Swiss luxury jeweller Graff, which is not part of Richemont.
Property on both Bond Street and its French peer Champs-Élysées has increasingly been bought by the luxury retailers that occupy the space in recent times. The likes of Prada, Chanel, Richemont, LVMH and Kering have all made significant investments over the past couple of years.
Earlier this year, Prada bought Miu Miu’s flagship store on New Bond Street for £250 million. The Italian fashion house, which owns Miu Miu, acquired the property from the M&G Life Fund, owners of the building for over 100 years. A CoStar report in August found the transaction took the amount spent by retailers on London’s most expensive shopping street in the past five years to £1.2 billion, a twelvefold increase on the £100 million spent in the preceding five years. There were no such deals at all between 2017 and 2019.
Cartier and Richemont did not respond to requests for comment.