Derwent London is pleased to announce the pre-letting of the entire office element of The Copyright Building, 30 Berners Street W1 to Capita Business Services Limited (“Capita”). Capita has agreed to take 87,150 sq ft at a rent of £7.4m pa (gross) which nets back to £6.5m pa after allowing for ground rent payable to the freeholder. This includes the ground floor reception of 1,500 sq ft and office floors one to seven. Capita will be taking a 20-year lease with no breaks at an average office rent of £86 psf. Rental incentives equate to a 34 month rent free period and there are five-yearly upward-only open market rent reviews. In addition, to facilitate Capita’s back-to-back move to The Copyright Building, the Group has made a payment to their landlord to extend their lease.
The Copyright Building, located in Fitzrovia, is immediately to the south of Fitzroy Place and opposite the Sanderson Hotel. In October 2014 Derwent London’s scheme received planning consent and, shortly after, a new headlease was agreed with the freeholder taking the lease term to 127 years with a gearing of 12.5% of rents. The scheme commenced in January 2015 and is due to complete in H2 2017. In addition to the office space, there is 20,000 sq ft of A1/A3 retail.
John Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Derwent London, commented:
“The Copyright Building is an exciting and dynamic new development and we are delighted that Capita has chosen it as their new UK head office. Since its purchase in December 2012 we have gained planning consent, acquired an interest in a building that completed the site assembly, regeared the headlease, and maintained full occupation until we were ready to start on site.”
Derwent London was represented by Deloitte Real Estate, Strutt & Parker and HMC and Capita acted on their own behalf.