Billionaire Kwek Leng Beng’s CDL Buys London’s Iconic St. Katharine Docks For $468 Million

City Developments Ltd. (CDL)—controlled by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng—said Thursday it had acquired the historic waterfront landmark St. Katharine Docks in Central London for £395 million ($486 million) from funds advised by U.S. private equity giant Blackstone.

Originally built in 1828 on a 23-acre freehold mixed-use marina estate on the River Thames, St Katharine Docks comprises more than 500,000 square feet (46,450 square meters) of office space, 400 residential units, and a marina with berths for up to 185 yachts. Overlooking the Tower of London, the property is surrounded by shops, restaurants and recreational facilities.

The acquisition enhances City Developments’ potential recurring rental income, Sherman Kwek, CDL Group CEO, said in a statement. The office buildings at St Katharine Docks have a strong occupancy rate of about 90%, and the weighted average of remaining leases is over 8 years.

“The current uncertainty in the U.K. has provided us with strategic opportunities to acquire prime assets and expand our portfolio,” Kwek, the eldest son of CDL executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng, said in the statement. Following the acquisition, the Singapore-based developer will own about 1 billion pounds worth of commercial assets in Central London such as prime freehold Grade A office buildings Aldgate House and 125 Old Broad Street.

CDL had planned to inject the U.K. commercial assets into a real estate investment trust that was supposed to list in Singapore, but the IPO was delayed amid heightened market volatility and macroeconomic headwinds. The properties complement the company’s fund management strategy and provide an option to inject the assets into a listed or an unlisted platform at an opportune time, the younger Kwek said.

​​The elder Kwek is also the chairman of Singapore’s Hong Leong Group, which was founded by his father in 1941. His cousin Quek Leng Chan, also a billionaire, runs a separate group in Malaysia, also called Hong Leong. With a net worth of $9.3 billion that he shares with his family, Kwek, 82, was ranked No. 5 on the list of Singapore’s 50 Richest that was published in September.