This is 27-35 Poultry, the Grade I-listed former headquarters of Midland bank, whose vaults incidentally featured in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger.
Paul Kemsley, friend of Sir Philip Green and Mike Ashley, made a killing when he sold the building, which sits next to the Bank of England, two and half years ago. The new owner, a former Russian deputy finance minister, has not been so lucky as the Sunday Times reported yesterday. Emphasis ours:
The former owner of the property, Vladimir Chernukhin, bought the building for around £72m. He acquired it from HBOS and former Tottenham Hotspur director and property entrepreneur Paul Kemsley, who made a £32m profit from selling the building after owning it for just five months. Chernukhin defaulted on a loan payment at the start of 2009 and administrators were appointed in February.
Poultry Developments, the vehicle that owned the building, had a senior loan worth £55m, which was packaged by Credit Suisse into mortgage-backed bonds. The Swiss bank then sold those bonds via a special-purpose company, Titan Europe 2007-3.
Mr Chernukhin’s plan was to turn the building into London’s first six star hotel before he was crunched. Indeed, planning permission for 181 bedrooms, bars, restaurants, health clubs and a private members’ club and roof garden was granted in November.
Anyone interested in buying this historic building, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, should contact Knight Frank.
Dominic Mayes at Knight Frank said he was not putting a price tag on it because of the unusual nature of the building.
But one name we can probably rule out is Mr Kemsley, whose property vehicle Rock, was recently placed into administration.
As an illustration of the madness which gripped the UK commercial property market in the boom years of this decade, the tale of 27-35 Poultry seems hard to beat.