aA controversial Glasgow office building has just changed hands in a #22.8m deal. Tay House, which straddles the M8 at Charing Cross, has been sold by Swedish bankers Svenska Handelsbanken to a subsidiary of international property investors MEPC.
It is understood that several bids were received, all of them of around #20m or more. MEPC recently purchased Hillington Industrial Estate.
Widely criticised for its design and its pink exterior, Tay House was built during the property boom of the early 1990s by developer Malcolm Potier. He also owned other office buildings in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as the island of Gigha, off the west coast of Kintyre.
His rapidly expanding empire was rocked by the property crash and the 160,000 sq ft Tay House was taken over by Svenska Handelsbanken which had provided the development funding. Gigha was sold around the same time.
Although Tay House struggled to find tenants at first, the building is now almost fully let to a range of public and private tenants including Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclay Stockbrokers, and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
Current rentals are between #11 and #13.50 per sq ft per annum.
''The building is now in good shape as an investment,'' says Simon Etchells of lawyers Semple Fraser who represented the vendors in the sale. The selling agent was Healey & Baker.
Several years ago the Ministry of Defence had earmarked Tay House as the UK centre for the army's new wages and pension payments system, offering to bring hundreds of jobs to the city. It was widely rumoured that the MoD was prepared to pay #21m for the building at the time, but the relocation fell through amid considerable controversy.
Earlier this month Malcolm Potier was banned from running a company for 15 years, for his conduct as a director of computer and property companies in Sevenoaks and Bromley which collapsed with debts of #4.1m.
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