Properties in Britain worth £77 million have been purchased by Treasury Holdings, the Dublin-based property company, in a joint venture with GE Capital. Among the properties bought from Hermes Property Asset Management are a 100,000 sq ft office building in Uxbridge, London, which is let to the computer company, Unisys. The companies stated yesterday that 75 per cent of the property portfolio were offices, centred in the south-east of England.

The largest building is Tolworth Tower, a 300,000 sq ft office and retail complex in the south west of London. About 20 per cent of the acquisition is retail space, with industrial properties comprising the remainder. "Treasury intends to purchase a further £150 million of similar property in the next nine months," Mr Richard Barrett, joint managing director of Treasury, said. The acquisition follows the joint purchase by Treasury and GE Capital of a £62 million property portfolio earlier this year

Mr Richard Powers, the managing director international of GE Capital's Commercial Property Financing, said that over the past three years GE Capital had funded over £1 billion of portfolio acquisitions in the UK. Treasury Holdings owns the Stillorgan Shopping Centre in Dublin.