Hong Kong’s oyster sauce king buys London’s ‘Walkie Talkie’ tower for record £1.3 billion

Lee Kum Kee Group, the Hong Kong company best known for its oyster sauce condiment, has bought a London office tower for a record £1.3 billion (US$1.7 billion), landing the biggest commercial property deal in the United Kingdom.

Lee’s property investment arm Infinitus will buy 20 Fenchurch Street, a London office tower affectionately known as the “Walkie Talkie” building because of its distinctive top-heavy shape, from Land Securities Group and the Canary Whart Group, according to a press statement by LKK Health Products’ chairman Sammy Lee.

Lee’s family business, founded in 1888 by Lee Kum Sheung in Guangdong province, has expanded over its century-long history into a specialist in cooking ingredients, with more than 200 types of Chinese sauces, one-step recipes in its condiments portfolio.

The oyster sauce is Lee’s best-known product, helping to propel the group’s growth into one of Hong Kong’s best known brands, and helping it to diversify into health products, property investments, plantations and trading.

Completed in 2014, the 37-storey “Walkie Talkie” tower is the sixth-tallest in London, with 1.4 million square feet (130,000 square metres) of office, retail and commercial space. With a 360-degree view across central London, the tower designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects features the famous Sky Garden, one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.

Lee is the latest among Hong Kong companies that’s piling into overseas real estate amid soaring residential and commercial property prices at home, making the city the world’s priciest urban centre. Prime office and commercial property prices just jumped by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent in May, after a sale of the Murray Road land parcel in Central for a world-beating price set a new benchmark.