UOL Group pushes into London with $202m luxury plaza purchase

It is located in the heart of London's central financial district.

UOL Group has become the newest Mainboard-listed real estate company to make overseas acquisitions in recent months. The group announced this morning that it has purchased Heron Plaza, a prime development site in London, from property investment firm Heron International for £97m ($202m).
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Heron Plaza will be UOL’s first major development in London. The Heron Plaza site provides unique planning consent to deliver a luxury new-build hotel and residential developments in London.

The site has consent for an iconic 43-storey tower, designed by PLP Architecture, comprising approximately 562,000 sq ft gross floor area (340,000 sq ft net area) of 5-star luxury hotel, residential apartments and retail component. UOL will operate the hotel under its flagship “PanPacific” hotel brand.

According to Gwee Lian Kheng, Group Chief Executive of UOL Group, “We are delighted to have acquired this prime site in London’s central financial district as part of our overseas strategic expansion. We are appreciative of Heron’s management and all the professional consultants involved for their responsiveness and efforts to facilitate the entire acquisition process. We look forward to establishing good rapport with the local community as we embark on the development of this project.”