British international law firm Mishcon de Reya is in talks to take 160,000 square feet of offices in London's Midtown.
The group is set to take the space at MidCity Place, on the north side of High Holborn, central London. The move would be expansionary as it presently occupies around 118,000 square feet at Africa House on Kingsway, also in Midtown.
MidCity Place is a Kohn Pederson Fox-designed building providing more than 350,000 square foot of Grade A office space over nine floors. Other occupiers include Yahoo, Mitsubishi Corporation and Playtech.
MidCity Place is owned in a 50:50 joint venture between Oxford Properties and Singaporean investor Temasek, with Oxford asset-managing the asset on behalf of the JV. The duo has been carrying out a major refurbishment on two floors plus a roof terrace.
Oxford Properties is the real estate investment arm of Canadian institutional investment giant Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Scheme and has been a major investor in the UK since launching a European business in London in 2008. At first, offices in London were a key component with Oxford completing the development and eventual £1.15 billion sale of the Leadenhall Building, or the Cheesegrater, in partnership with British Land. In 2016 it formed a joint venture with Brockton Capital and secured a loan financing for the redevelopment of The Post Building in Holborn.
By 2016 it signalled its retreat from new London office investments by selling a 50% stake in two landmark buildings on Paternoster Square for roughly £200 million to Madison International Realty.
In 2019 Oxford and Brockton sold The Post Building to Pontegadea, the real estate business of Amancio Ortega, founder and main shareholder of the Inditex fashion group, for around £610 million, or a 3.95% net initial yield. This was understood to be the largest single asset real estate investment in the West End.
The same year it sold the long leasehold 50% interest of 1 & 2 London Wall Place to its joint venture partner Brookfield for £354 million.
At the Mipim conference in Cannes last week speaking to CoStar News Jay Drexler, head of asset management – office, retail and life science Europe at Oxford Properties, signalled the group's renewed commitment to London offices but declined to discuss lettings.
It still also own the Blue Fin Building in Southwark in joint venture with Temasek, where CoStar Group, CoStar News's parent group, occupies 51,721 square feet, as reported.
And in 2024 the Toronto-based investor and partner Pioneer Group did buy a major London office, Victoria House in Bloomsbury in London, but for conversion into a 300,000-square-foot life sciences development. Life sciences has been a key component of its investment strategy since 2017, with around eight million square feet of completed, conversion and ground-up development now in the US and UK.
In Europe it has also established the £1.2 billion fund vehicle DOOR to invest in the UK’s leading build-to-rent residential platform, Get Living, in partnership with Delancey. It also acquired the Sony Center in Berlin for £1 billion and entered Australia in late 2018 through the £2.6 billion take-private acquisition of the ASX-listed office real estate investment trust, Investa Office Fund.
Recently, it has focused mainly on the living sectors and logistics.
JLL and Farebrother are leasing agents at MidCity place. All parties declined to comment.