A 313,000 sq ft office block in Canary Wharf has crashed into insolvency after the owners called in administrators in further dire news for London offices.
FTI Consulting has been appointed joint administrator of 5 Churchill Place Management Company alongside existing property manager BNP Paribas Real Estate.
The 12-storey office block, located at the gateway of Canary Wharf’s new Wood Wharf District, was the former London head office of Bear Stearns before its collapse in the 2008 banking crisis.
Hong Kong billionaire Chen Hongtian’s Cheung Kei Group acquired the property for £270m in 2017, and the majority of the building is currently let to various companies in the financial services sector.
In March, Bloomberg News reported that Lloyds Banking Group was attempting to sell a loan secured against the Canary Wharf office block.
FTI Consulting said it did not expect the administration to have any operational impact, with the existing property manager and asset manager remaining in place to ensure the building continued to operate as usual.
The firm confirmed it had been appointed as joint administrator and fixed charge receiver over the shares of Jovial Link Holdings and Manco on 23 May.
Jovial is the owner of the long leasehold interest in 5 Churchill Place while ManCo provides the property management function.
Ali Khaki, a senior managing director at FTI Consulting, said: “We do not expect the administration of ManCo, or the fixed charge receivership over the shares of Jovial, to have any operational impact at Churchill Place which will continue to operate on a business-as-usual basis.
“As part of this I can confirm that the property managers (BNPP) and the asset managers (JLL) will remain in situ ensuring the continued smooth running of Churchill Place going forward.”
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