PERMODALAN Nasional Bhd and the Employees’ Provident Fund will buy London’s iconic Battersea Power Station for a record £1.6 billion (RM8.8 billion), the Guardian reports.

The two state-owned firms will buy the Grade II-listed building but not the 17ha surrounding it, the Battersea Power Station Development Company said in a statement yesterday.

The deal will become one of Britain’s biggest real estate transactions, surpassing the £1.28 billion Chinese investors paid for the Walkie Talkie building in London last year.

A company source said the deal is not linked to reported financial difficulties in the redevelopment but due to Apple’s decision to base its UK headquarters in the former coal-fired power station’s central boiler house from 2021 – guaranteeing a future income stream.

Reports said the construction cost has nearly doubled from £750 million to £1.5 billion.

PNB and EPF will pay about 1,000 times more for the building than the original purchaser, theme park entrepreneur John Groome, reports the Evening Standard.

Groome paid £1.5 million for the derelict power station to the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1987.

The London landmark was acquired in 2012 by Malaysian companies – SP Setia and Sime Darby – for £400 million.

SP Setia and Sime Darby are to build a new underground train station as part of the proposed extension of the northern line of the London network.

The first phase of the redevelopment project was officially launched in 2013, with the promised construction of 800 apartments, suites, townhouses and penthouses across eight buildings, as well as art galleries, a Power Station Design shop, independent coffee shops, a boutique theatre, 35,000 sq ft of creative business studios, a 15,000 sq ft gym, an indoor swimming pool and a health spa.

The gross development value of the first phase residential development is about £1 billion.

The power station’s two smoke stacks are a feature of London’s skyline and a monument to Britain’s past industrial might. It was constructed in 1933 but only completed in 1953. It supplied 20% of London’s power at its peak before closing down in 1983. – January 19, 2018.