Glasgow Rangers Football Club chairman David Murray has bought a significant development site in London’s Midtown for £120m from British Land and Schroders’ City of London Office Unit Trust.

CLOUT, managed by Schroders and advised by British Land Property Advisers, has sold Plumtree Court to PPG Metro, a joint venture between Edinburgh-based Premier Property Group, owned by David Murray, and Bank of Scotland.

The sale price of the 198,502 sq ft (18,441 sq m) office building in EC4 reflects a net initial yield of 7.2%.

Plumtree Court is let to PricewaterhouseCoopers until 2009 at around £8.7m a year. PPG Metro has bought the building as a potential development opportunity when PWC’s lease expires. It has the potential to either be extensively refurbished and extended, or to be knocked down and redeveloped.

The office building is part of an island site bounded by Farringdon Street, Plumtree Court and Shoe Lane. It was built in 1984, and comprises three office buildings. Savills advised CLOUT. Strutt & Parker and Farebrother advised PPG Metro.

Andrew Glasgow, director of PPG, said: ‘This acquisition substantially increases our holdings in London, adding a significant Midtown presence to existing projects in the West End and the City.

‘We see a number of redevelopment opportunities arising on expiry of the lease. This is a vehicle we hope to use for further growth in London and elsewhere.’

The transaction almost completes the programme of the sale of assets held in CLOUT, which was set up in 2001 after Pillar Property’s purchase of developer Wates.

Last year, the three equity investors in CLOUT – Pillar, Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust (SEPUT) and Sitq – decided to restructure their City holdings, which led to Pillar selling its 50% share of the Citypoint building to Tishman Speyer for £520m.

Murray, chairman of PPG’s parent company, Murray International Holdings, is best known for reviving Rangers in the 1980s. He is aiming to revive the club’s fortunes again through new manager Paul Le Guen.

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