Ivanhoe Cambridge eyes return to London office market

Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate arm of Canada's second-largest pension fund, is looking to re-enter the London office market as part of a broader plan to build up assets in 15 key cities, its top executive said.

Ivanhoe, which is active in the London residential market but sold off its sole office asset in the city in August, intended to open a London office sooner rather than later, chief executive Daniel Fournier said.

"We'll go in and hopefully over a five-year period we'll accumulate assets," he said.

Ivanhoe, a unit of Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, is expected to make an opening gambit in London as early as next week. Trade publications have reported it may make a £114 million (HK$1.4 billion) acquisition of the city's Stonecutter property, part of Deloitte's Midtown campus.

Fournier declined to confirm the reports but said such a deal would be "a great place to start" in London.

He cautioned that Ivanhoe would not grow rapidly in an expensive market like London. "If we could find five or six other assets just like [Stonecutter] or similar to it, we would do it … Because of the pricing levels there, we know it won't happen overnight," he said.