Battersea Power Station wraps up £1.6 billion deal to sign new owner

Battersea Power Station on Monday sealed a year-long £1.6 billion deal to get new owners amid worries that there will be construction delays.

In January, Permodalan Nasional Berhad, a fund manager with £50 billion of assets under management, said it would buy a stake in the iconic building from Sime Darby and SP Setia, its current owners alongside the Employees Provident Fund.

Monday’s sale, which will complete in the first quarter of next year, only involves the Grade II-listed building itself and the six acres of land it sits on, but not the rest of the 42-acre riverside site being developed.

Battersea chief executive Simon Murphy said the shareholders are committed to the project — which will see shops, offices and flats on the site — and the building will be refurbished by the end of 2020.

But Apple, which plans to make the building its London HQ, reportedly said it was eyeing temporary office space in case there are delays, and several Malaysian entities have faced troubles at home with a string of deals in which Malaysian sovereign wealth and pension funds had invested being probed over money-laundering concerns. In June, a senior Malaysian politician said the PNB deal should be investigated.

A spokeswoman said, however, that this isn’t something which Battersea’s owners have been or are currently subject to.