Having secured a total of €43.6 million from the sales in 2018 and 2020 to German fund Quadoro Doric of Two and Three Haddington Buildings for €24 million and €19.6 million respectively, the Dublin-based McCormack family’s investment vehicle Alanis Capital and its funding partner, Deutsche Bank, are seeking a buyer for the third and final block at the newly refurbished office scheme. One Haddington Buildings is being offered to the market by joint agents HWBC and Savills at a guide price of €27.15 million.
Should a sale proceed at that level, it would likely provide the vendors with a significant return on the cost of purchasing and upgrading the three buildings. Deutsche Bank acquired the Haddington Buildings as part of its wider €145 million purchase of the Project Spring portfolio from Nama in 2014. The portfolio comprised loans with a face value of some €427 million which had been extended to the Kildare-based developer Jerry Conlan on a range of properties in Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Westmeath and London.
Apart from the Haddington Buildings, which were known then as the former offices of the Hibernian Insurance Company, Project Spring included an office block at nearby Wilton Place; the Central Hotel, at 1-5 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2; Newhall Retail Park in Naas, Co Kildare; development land sites near the European Club in Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow and in Gigginstown, Co Westmeath; and an office building in London.
In the case of the Haddington Buildings, Mr Conlan’s company, Quinby Properties, acquired the three blocks along with one other building in 2006 from Hibernian Insurance, the name at the time for the Irish subsidiary of Aviva, for about €80 million.
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One Haddington Buildings comprises a four-storey over-basement office building extending to a net internal area of 3,925sq m (42,252sq ft) along with 23 secure car-parking spaces and 47 secure bike spaces. The property underwent an extensive redesign and refurbishment programme at a cost of €13 million in 2022 that included the addition of a new entrance facade, a double-height reception and an enclosed atrium for shared-occupier use. The property now has an A3 Ber rating and a nearly zero-energy building (NZEB) rating.
One Haddington Buildings comes to the market fully let to a strong tenant line-up consisting of the Dublin-headquartered recruitment specialist CPL Group, StepStone Group, BKD Architects and Instant Managed Offices/Harbourvest partners. The weighted average unexpired lease term is 5.5 years while the lease to expiry stands at 13 years. The overall annual rental income is €1,939,955 and the rents are competitive at approximately €46.75 per sq ft for the offices and an average of €3,850 per car space. The guide price reflects a net income yield of 6.5 per cent after allowing for typical purchaser costs of 9.96 per cent.
