Hamburg-based Union Investment Real Estate GmbH has sold the Whitefriars office building in London to a special purpose vehicle of the Employee Provident Fund of Malaysia for £148 million. The nine-storey building at 65 Fleet St. comprises 223,460 square feet of space.

“After having extended the lease with existing tenant Freshfields we took the opportunity to sell the property and take advantage of current strong demand for core investments,” says Karl-Joseph Hermanns-Engel, a member of the management board of Union Investment.

Union Investment acquired Whitefriars in 1997 for £123.7 million on behalf of its open-end real estate fund UniImmo: Deutschland.

In other news, Union Investment has purchased a 145,300-square-foot property in Hamburg for €71 million. The newly built Centurion Commercial Centre is 85 percent leased and includes 167 underground parking