Workspace Group Considering Sale of Valuable London Office

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As Workspace Group deals with activist investor pressure, it’s considering putting its most notable — and valuable — office up for sale.

The flexible office landlord based out of London is weighing putting up the Salisbury House at 29 Finsbury Circus up for sale, Bloomberg reported. The property is expected to attract around £125 million ($170 million) in bids should it come to market.

While it’s the most valuable property for Workspace, it’s not the company’s biggest office. That distinction belongs to an asset in the Kennington Park neighborhood.

Workspace is interested in selling property, even if it’s not yet clear if it’s interested in selling Salisbury House specifically. At its most recent quarterly earnings, the company said it was in agreement to sell £125.7 million-worth of assets and was in discussions to go further as it targets £200 million ($272 million) in sales.

Salisbury House is a top performer for the company, generating more in rent than any other property in Workspace’s portfolio, according to its annual report. Workspace purchased the 220,000-square-foot property in 2017 for £158.7 million.

Workspace declined to comment.

The potential listing comes as the company struggles with lower rents and higher vacancies. It had landed in the crosshairs of Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital, which singled out the Workspace stock during a hedge fund conference late last year.

Weinstein’s firm addressed a letter to the Workspace board in January, calling for the company to wind down. Saba recently increased its voting rights in the company to more than 18 percent.

Flexible office entrepreneur Charlie Green recently took the reins at Workspace. He’s on a pursuit to build Workspace into “the first-choice provider of space for the startup, SME and scale-up market,” but a dividend cut sent its stock sputtering; it dropped 23 percent in the London market in the last year.

— Holden Walter-Warner