Evans Randall defies cooling market to buy City's Drapers Gardens for £250m

Drapers Gardens, one of the Square Mile's biggest and newest office buildings, is to be sold for £250m despite signs of a cooling property investment market. The London-listed Songbird Estates, through its main operating subsidiary Canary Wharf Group, could confirm as early as this week it has exchanged contracts to sell the 292,000 sq ft building to investment bank Evans Randall.

CWG owns the building with Morgan Stanley Real Estate and Exemplar Properties. Evans Randall agreed to buy Drapers Gardens in June. The building is considered an excellent long-term investment as it is let on a 25-year lease to global investment manager Black Rock.

But there are signs that the recent investor surge in the property market may be abating. On Friday, the £300m sale of Tower 42 to Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau was scrapped. The tower's owners, Hermes Real Estate and BlackRock, have taken it off the market and say they will carry out a "new asset management strategy".