Hong Kong Investor Lai Wing-to Sells London Building to Aberdeen for Reported $160M

Hong Kong property investor Lai Wing-to has sold a mixed-use building in London’s posh West End to Scottish asset manager Aberdeen for a reported £120 million ($160 million).

Known as the “Ten Billion Shop King” for earning his fortune through street shop and retail property investments over the last three decades, Lai put Standbrook House at 2-5 Old Bond Street on the market in early 2024 along with two other properties at 291 Oxford Street & 2 Harewood Place and 147-155 Wardour Street.

Standbrook House dates to 1900 and features retail, office and residential space totalling 23,625 square feet (21,915 square metres), including 10,246 square feet occupied by high-end watchmaker Richard Mille and luxury leather goods merchant Tod’s. Aberdeen purchased the building on behalf of the Standard Life Pooled Pension Property Fund, the firm said this week.

“This acquisition represents a strong addition to the fund’s portfolio, aligning with our strategy of investing in high-quality assets with long-term income and capital growth potential,” said fund manager David Stewart. “It follows a series of disposals of industrial assets, which were sold at competitive pricing. We anticipate further acquisitions in London in the near future.”

Ares Deal Collapse

UK-based Green Street News said in July that US investment giant Ares Management had agreed to buy Standbrook House for around £130 million, valuing the building at £5,500 per square foot with a 3.7 percent yield, but the deal ultimately fell through. Aberdeen’s £120 million buy price was reported by local media including CoStar News.

Lai, who acquired the property for £152.5 million from UK insurer NFU Mutual in December 2018, had entered into an agreement in 2023 to sell the property to Richard Mille for a reported £170 million, but the transaction failed to materialise.

Lai revealed to Hong Kong media in 2023 that properties in the British capital accounted for 30 percent of his investment portfolio, with the investor having spent hundreds of millions of pounds snapping up shops in the Soho and Mayfair areas in the decade leading up to the pandemic. He told local media that year that the market value of his overall portfolio had fallen by about 30 percent from its peak due to the pandemic.

Consultancies Chapman Petrie and Hall Lahaise advised Aberdeen on the Standbrook House transaction, while Lai was represented by JLL and CBRE.

Retail King’s Fire Sale

The trio of London assets had gone up for sale just weeks after Lai began pushing a pair of commercial properties worth an estimated HK$600 million in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay and Central districts, with the investor’s HK$460 million oceanfront mansion also on the block.

Last November, Lai sold a serviced apartment block in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai area for HK$160 million ($21 million), with market sources pointing to a vehicle backed by investors including a member of the Kuok family behind HKEX-listed developer Kerry Properties as the buyer.

Earlier this month, news website HK01 reported that Lai had sold 132 Sai Yeung Choi Street South in Mong Kok for HK$62 million ($8 million), parting with the asset for nearly 40 percent less than what he paid for the building in 2009.