Helical sells stake in new City of London development to Orion Capital

By Chris Dorrell

Property firm Helical has sold a 50 per cent stake in the 100 New Bridge Street redevelopment to a vehicle run by Orion Capital Managers.

Helical said the building, originally completed in 1992, will be taken back to its frame and comprehensively refurbished with new cladding and two additional floors.

The redevelopment will be “carbon friendly” using the existing structure and reusing materials.

The total internal area of the office space will be 191,065 square feet on the first to tenth floors. There will also be 3,592 square feet of retail on the ground floor.

Helical sold the 50 per cent stake for £55m on a preferred equity basis. The proceeds will be used to fund Helical’s ongoing development pipeline.

The parties have also entered into a development financing arrangement with Natwest and an unnamed institutional lender. Natwest has said it would provide £50m of the £155m facility.

Construction work has already started with the redevelopment scheduled to complete in March 2026.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Orion Capital Managers on the development of this best-in-class, carbon friendly new building, to be completed in Q1 2026 when we anticipate there will be a critical shortage of top quality office space in the City,” Gerald Kaye, chief executive of Helical said.

Aref Lahham, Managing Partner of Orion, added: “We continue to believe that there is a window of opportunity in bringing best-in-class, green office space to the city market to capture the pressing tenant demand whilst supply remains constrained.”

Demand for environmentally friendly office space in the City is set to rocket in the years ahead. Regulators have said that office blocks need to meet a minimum standard of energy efficiency in order to be let out.

This minimum standard is set to rise in the years ahead, forcing more firms to move to more sustainable offices.