The acquisition of the most expensive building in Britain underlines the influence of Chinese investors in the UK.
The property arm of Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee Health Products Group, which is known for sauces and healthcare products, paid £1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) for 20 Fenchurch Street, an office building in London known as the Walkie Talkie.
“Chinese investors now rank just behind US as the second largest source of global cross border capital and we expect them to have an increasing influence on the UK market,” said Eric Pang, head of the China desk at JLL, a property consultancy.
Chinese investors had different motivations to traditional UK and global investors, because “they seek diversification and safe haven forms of investment, and are less concerned with traditional return benchmarks”, he said.
Ben Burston, head of UK capital markets research at JLL, said buyers from Hong Kong and mainland China accounted for 43% of the total £8 billion of London investment turnover in the first half of the year.
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