German with £2 billion stake in London property has murky record

A German landlord with a reputation for shabby buildings and disgruntled tenants has emerged as one of the biggest investors in London property in recent years.

Henning Conle, 70, has snapped up almost £2 billion (HK$26 billion) worth of prime real estate, including a series of historic buildings in central London, raising questions about where he got his money.

The portfolio includes buildings that house department stores such as Liberty and House of Fraser, the Kensington Roof Gardens complex, the London offices of Manchester United, and the art deco Shell Mex House on the Strand.

Little was known before about Conle and his Luxembourg-registered Sirosa company. When the Shell Mex deal was concluded for a reported £610 million last year, reports erroneously identified the buyer as a German family named "Conley".

Conle has a somewhat tarnished reputation in Germany, where he is thought to own more than 10,000 properties.

In Hamburg, where at one point in the 1990s he owned up to 2,500 flats, newspapers used to call him "the phantom" because of his apparent lack of interest in looking after his properties.