Lecturers’ pension fund seeks new tune with £90m O2 area bid

Britain’s greatest personal pension fund has entered the race to purchase the lease of the O2, London’s best-known leisure venue.

Sky Information has learnt that the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) is among the many bidders for the long-term earnings stream generated by the world.

Pension fund sources mentioned quite a lot of outstanding institutional buyers had been collaborating in an public sale being run by Eastdil, the true estate-focused funding financial institution.

USS, which owns stakes within the operator of Britain’s air site visitors management service and Moto, the motorway service station chain, is known to be a critical contender for the O2 area lease.

The public sale has been underway for a while, with Sky Information having revealed a number of months in the past that it was being put up on the market by Cambridge College’s wealthiest faculty.

Trinity Faculty, which ranks amongst Britain’s greatest landowners, acquired the positioning in 2009 for a reported £24m.

The O2, which shrugged off its ‘white elephant’ standing within the aftermath of its disastrous debut because the Millennium Dome in 2000, has since turn into one of many world’s main leisure venues.

Operated by Anschutz Leisure Group, it has performed host to a big selection of music, theatrical and sporting occasions over almost 1 / 4 of a century.

The chance to accumulate the 999-year lease is prone to result in a deal being struck later within the spring.

Trinity Faculty, which was based by Henry VIII in 1546, purchased the O2 lease from Lend Lease and Quintain, the property firms which had taken management of the Millennium Dome web site in 2002 for nothing.

A USS spokesman declined to remark.