Sexy Portals

Songbird Estates, one of the major shareholders of Canary Wharf, purported as London’s second largest financial district, was close to financial bankruptcy after investing in its race for holding majority shares in Canary Wharf. However, this year, finances seem to be getting better, especially with the proposed infusion of cash into its treasury. In fact, the finances are looking so good that the company plans to repay its existing Citigroup loan entirely by mid October this year.

Funds are expected to be raised by selling its preference shares held with Qatar Holding LLC and Fullbloom Investment Corporation, which is a subsidiary of the China Investment Corporation. This Chinese enterprise is a shareholder in Songbird Estates, and is the first Chinese investor in the UK’s economy.

With Qatar and China backing Songbird Estates, more and more companies want shares in the latter, and therefore Songbird is planning to buy more shares and increase its holding to 69 percent. Other major shareholders of Songbird include the US bank Morgan Stanley, which has about 12 percent shares in Songbird and is considered to be the biggest shareholder. Apart from Morgan Stanley, the shareholding group includes giants like British Land, Prince Alwaleed bin Tahal of Saudi Arabia, and Hasso Plattner, the co-founder of SAP.

It is very interesting to note that almost the entire Canary Wharf business area, including the shared offices occupied by Lehmann Brothers, has been let out, which is a good sign for both existing shareholders as well as new investors. The drop in income in the first half has not really affected the financial scenario or the mood of the directors and shareholders of the company.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 11:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.