Behind the Shopfronts - The Foreign and Financial Giants

The question of who truly owns the physical space in the City of London is far more than academic—it strikes at the heart of economic sovereignty, urban affordability, and market resilience.

Foreign ownership of real estate in London particularly office and retail property has surged dramatically over the last four decades

Over the past two decades, the ownership of retail and commercial real estate in London, especially within the prestigious City and West End areas, has increasingly shifted into the hands of foreign nationals, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity firms.

Today, retail buildings in the City are more likely to be owned by a multinational asset manager or a non-resident investor than a UK-based landlord. This quiet transfer of ownership has taken place through decades of liberal property laws, low interest rate driven investment booms, and London's enduring global status as a safe haven for capital.

A market owned from abroad

Foreign ownership of real estate in London particularly office and retail property has surged dramatically over the last four decades. In 1980, foreign entities owned just 8% of commercial buildings in the City. By 2011, that number had soared to over 52%. While that figure includes offices, retail properties in prime locations have followed the same trajectory.

Among the largest foreign stakeholders are:

• Germany, which held 16% of City office properties as of the early 2010s.

• The United States, whose institutional investors and funds such as Blackstone and BlackRock collectively hold around 10% of City properties.

• Sovereign wealth funds from Norway, Qatar, Singapore, and China, which have strategically acquired high-profile retail and mixed-use assets across the West End and central London.

  
  

This trend is not merely historic, it’s accelerating. In March 2025, Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, paid £570 million for a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate. That purchase gave the Norwegian state exposure to over 1 million square feet of retail, hospitality, and leisure space in one of London's most iconic areas.

Private Equity’s expanding grip

Alongside sovereign funds and foreign pension managers, private equity (PE) firms have established a dominant position in the UK real estate business. During the post-pandemic recovery period, PE firms aggressively acquired distressed assets and repositioned them for long-term income streams or redevelopment.

According to industry data, private equity deals in the UK reached a staggering £152 billion in 2021, involving over 1,900 transactions. Real estate particularly commercial and retail property was a major target. Firms such as Brookfield Asset Management, The Blackstone Group, TPG Real Estate, and Apollo have all been active in acquiring and managing London property portfolios.

In a notable transaction in October 2024, British Land Co Plc, one of the UK’s largest REITs, acquired seven retail parks from Brookfield for £441 million. This deal repositioned British Land as the country’s largest direct owner and operator of retail parks, a title previously held by private capital.

That acquisition also signaled a strategic shift: many PE firms are beginning to exit assets at the top of the market, selling them to listed landlords or institutional players as interest rates stabilize and valuations peak. Still, the legacy of PE ownership remains embedded across the city’s high streets and shopping districts.

Transparency gaps

One of the challenges in fully understanding who owns retail real estate in the City is the opacity of ownership structures. Foreign investors often use offshore vehicles, shell corporations, or investment funds based in tax-advantaged jurisdictions such as Jersey, Luxembourg, or the Cayman Islands.

According to research by Transparency International and the Centre for Public Data, around 87,000 properties in England and Wales are owned by foreign companies—many of them in central London. In practice, this makes tracing beneficial ownership and accountability difficult, especially when buildings sit empty or are underutilized. This opaqueness can have real consequences, for example local councils lose out on business rates from vacant properties, tenants face absentee landlords, and city planners struggle to regulate development effectively.

The City of London remains a magnet for global capital, but the nature of that capital is who controls it, what it seeks, and how it behaves matters deeply. Retail buildings are not merely balance sheet assets; they are parts of neighborhoods, ecosystems of culture, commerce, and community.

As ownership trends increasingly tilt toward the international and institutional, policymakers must ask a simple question: who is London really for?