Kier buys back 81 Fountain Street
The contractor has acquired its national head office for the second time, paying Blackrock somewhere in the region of £12m for the Manchester asset.
Blackrock has sold 81 Fountain Street to Kier eight years after the contractor last owned the building.
Kier, which has a lease on the entire 45,000 sq ft office, originally bought the vacant asset from Mercer Real Estate in 2016.
Two months later, the construction firm completed a sale and leaseback deal with Aprirose that saw it take occupation of five floors while securing a profit.
The building then traded again in 2018 when Blackrock paid £22.5m to take it off Aprisose’s hands.
CBRE acted for Kier and Knight Frank acted for Blackrock.
The deal is the second office trade to complete in Manchester in recent days. Leeds-based Threesmith Group acquired Northern Assurance Buildings from Kinrise for around £8.5m giving the industry hope that the investment market could be picking up.
