Blackstone, Google to buy offices from Nama for €160m

Blackstone Group plans to buy about €100m of Dublin office space as Ireland recovers from Western Europe’s worst property crash, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Blackstone is set to purchase three buildings from the National Asset Management Agency in Dublin, said the people, who asked not to be named as the deal isn’t complete.

Separately, Google is the top bidder to buy the 9,000- square-metre Grand Mill Quay property in the capital for as much as €60m from the agency, one of the people said.

Irish commercial properties are generating annual income returns of 9.7%, more than any other country, according to data compiled by Investment Property Databank. The four buildings, known as the Platinum Collection, were put up for sale in October with a total asking price of €120m, according to a statement at the time from brokers CBRE Group and Knight Frank.

Google, Nama and Blackstone all declined to comment.

Amid signs of a recovery, Ireland is becoming a magnet for international buyers.

Blackstone bought the 501-bedroom Burlington Hotel in south Dublin in 2012.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, already leases workspace at Grand Mill Quay, The company, which employs 2,500 people in Ireland, spent €227m buying three other buildings on Dublin’s Barrow Street in 2011, it said in Oct 2012.

Nama was set up to take on and sell real estate assets purged from Ireland’s lenders after the property market collapsed.

Irish commercial property prices have fallen by about two thirds from their 2007 peak, and residential property by about half.