REAL ESTATE Opportunities (REO), 67 per cent owned by Treasury Holdings, says it has a “principal objective of outperforming the market through this current cycle”. Yet its interim results, posted in June, recorded a 15 per cent drop in the value of its UK property portfolio (and 9 per cent in its Irish one), to £1,622m, from £1,910m in December 2008, and it has debts of £1.6bn, all of which has caused jitters. But REO’s results have also caught the attention of London residents with a fondness for the beleaguered Battersea Power Station, which REO bought in 2006 and plans to develop – along with land it’s acquired around the site – into a scheme of 3,700 homes, 139,000sq m (1.5 million sq ft) of offices and 46,451.7sq m (500,000sq ft) of shops.
The masterplan, by US-based architect Rafael Vinoly, includes a vast glass tower that dwarfs the chimneys on the Grade II listed power station which was designed by Theo Halliday and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The latter also designed Bankside which now houses the Tate Modern gallery – and many would like to see a similar thing happening to the Battersea Power Station building.
Its fame was increased when Pink Floyd used the brick-built station – complete with flying pig – on the cover of its Animals album. Yet Battersea Power Station – which has been bought and sold a few times since it was decommissioned in the 1980s but never developed – could benefit from a later song, by the band, Another Brick in the Wall.
