World famous Royal Liver Building sold for £48m

The iconic Royal Liver Building in Liverpool has been sold for £48m with its new owner pledging to splash out nearly £6m on an upgrade.

The building first opened in 1911 has been acquired from owner the Royal London Mutual Society by Luxembourg-based Corestate Capital from an initial guide price of £40m.

Corestate founder and chief investment officer Thomas Landschreiber told The Liverpool Echo he was proud his company now owned such a “crazy and unique” building, promising to renovate office space to attract new tenants.

The Royal Liver Building when it first opened was the home of Royal Liver Assurance. In 2011, Royal Liver and its headquarters were taken over by rival Royal London.

Landschreiber said: “If you’re doing real estate for a number of years the usual model is that 95% of the buildings that you have to deal with are, let’s say, normal or newly-erected buildings which could be replicated anywhere.

“But sometimes you say ‘what a crazy and unique building which you’d never build again in this life’.

“This is a quite exceptional building.

“When I saw it for the first time I was really impressed. The I read about the history and that this was the first time this building was on the market.

“We are really proud now that we won that process and will become the owner.

“The next step is to invest money and get tenants for the vacant space where we see a huge opportunity for Liverpool at the moment.”

International food giant Princes has its headquarters in the building alongside £50bn pension fund the Universities Superannuation Scheme, HSBC and accountancy firm Grant Thornton.

Landschreiber added: “The plan is to invest a significant amount of money to refurbish that vacant space then take it back to the market to try to attract new tenants and get it fully let.”

He said no more than 12% of the purchase price (£5.8m) would be spent upgrading the building.

The sale was led by estate agent CBRE.