FAILED SALE: The Telecom headquarters in Auckland.
Plans to sell Telecom's headquarters property in Auckland to a group of European investors appear to have fallen over.
The four-building complex on Victoria St in Auckland's CBD is one of the most valuable properties in the city with an estimated market value of $250 million to $300m.
The owner, Mansons TCLM, developed the property and leased it to Telecom, which moved in as the anchor tenant in late 2010.
Mansons generally sells the properties it develops once they are leased, and unconfirmed reports in March said the Telecom project had been sold to an unnamed buyer.
The Sunday Star-Times understands that the potential buyer had interests associated with Canadian businessman Farhad Vladi but that the deal will now not be proceeding.
Mansons director Culum Manson said he could "neither confirm nor deny" that that was the case.
However, the Sunday Star-Times understands that discussions around the sale of the property may be continuing with other parties.
Hamburg-based Vladi is the owner of Vladi Private Islands, a company which specialises in selling islands as private retreats to wealthy individuals.
Over the years this business has seen him build up a client list which includes many of the world's rich and famous and he has developed a sideline of putting together syndicates of mainly European investors to buy commercial office properties.
Vladi will also often take a minority stake in the syndicates. Using this model he has been active in the Canadian and New Zealand commercial property markets.
In this country one of his syndicates owns Fonterra's head office building opposite the Pullman Hotel in Auckland, which was purchased for about $40m in 2010. Other syndicates he has put together own several properties in Wellington's CBD, including a supermarket in Thorndon which was purchased for $18.5m last year, the historic bank arcade complex on the corner of Lambton and Customhouse Quays and the former AMP building on Customhouse Quay.
Mansons is one of the few development companies to have undertaken major new projects in New Zealand over the past few years.
As well as the Telecom complex, it has recently completed two other new office complexes in Auckland, one located across the road from Telecom's headquarters and the other just down the road in Freemans Bay.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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