NFU brings in £141million from sale of London property

The building in one of London’s most upmarket shopping streets, was bought by NFU Mutual in the mid 1990s for £9m and has been sold to the Italian owners of the Max Mara fashion group.

Tom Bostock, investment manager at NFU Mutual, said: “While NFU Mutual is best known in the countryside as the UK’s leading rural insurer, we have substantial property investment holdings totalling around £2bn.

“This portfolio is part of NFU Mutual’s total assets under management which at the end of 2017 were worth over £20bn. These assets are invested in a wide range of holdings including shares, bonds and cash to provide security and growth potential for NFU Mutual’s members.

“These iconic London buildings don’t come on the market very often so there was considerable interest from across the globe. We take a very long term approach to investment but felt the time was right to sell this building and invest the proceeds in other prime UK property.

“For instance, we’ve recently bought a retail park in Birmingham for around £50 million and we expect it will return a very good yield over the longer term.

“Strong investment returns are not only good for customers who invest via our pensions and investment products. They also benefit all our general insurance customers who get discounts off their premiums in the form of a mutual bonus when they renew. The mutual bonus is our way of sharing our success with our members.”