BDO in bid to save plan for £500m skyscraper

By This Is Money
Updated: 06:51 EDT, 25 October 2010

Administrators from BDO were this weekend trying to resurrect a plan to build a 558ft skyscraper on the South Bank of the Thames after Royal Bank of Scotland pulled the plug on the project.

BDO partners Shay Bannon and Sarah Rayment have been appointed administrators of the One Blackfriars project in central London, it emerged last week.

Planning permission has been secured for a tower containing an upmarket hotel and luxury flats, but the £500m project needs new finance. BDO said it was working with developer Stephen Beetham, head of the Beetham Organisation.

Beetham said that cash was needed to get the project moving.

'Any serious investors with more than £100m in spare cash should get in touch with me,' he told industry publication Estates Gazette. 'That's the sort of equity needed to get this moving again.'

BDO said in a statement: 'We are in discussions with the One Blackfriars management, creditors, property agents and planning advisers regarding the implementation of the current planning permission. We are considering a number of potential strategies with a view to maximising value.'

The difficulties faced by the scheme contrast with the fortunes of many other property developers who are pressing ahead with plans for London skyscrapers after a lull in their fortunes following the credit crunch.

Land Securities said on Tuesday that it was forming a joint venture with the Canary Wharf group to build the 'Walkie Talkie', a new tower on Fenchurch Street in the City, given that nickname because of its concave shape.

Heron International, meanwhile, secured finance earlier this year to build a 36-storey residential tower on Silk Street next to the Barbican complex.