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The retail and office building is located at 181-183 Kings Road, Chelsea on the junction with Sydney Street. The site is located within the Royal Hospital Conservation Area and is directly adjacent the Chelsea Town Hall (Grade II Listed).

CIT intends to redevelop the building into high quality residential apartments with ground floor retail onto the Kings Road, which is in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The CIT Real Estate Limited Partnership (the “UK Fund”), which was established in 2005 has £211 million (€310 million) in commitments and a further £42 million (€62 million) of co-investment equity. Including co-investment, the UK Fund comprises assets valued at almost £750 million (€1 billion). The Fund’s recent acquisitions of two office buildings in a well established business park in Hook and the best retail park in Exeter effectively completes the investment programme for the UK Fund.

CIT Germany Fund I Limited (the “German Fund”) closed in the second half of 2006 with €72.5 million in commitments. €262 million of gross assets have been purchased to date. Following the purchase of the Taurus portfolio in the second quarter of 2008, the German Fund is now closed and fully invested.

CIT, owner of Stuart House, has recently completed the letting of 15,577 sq.ft at the building in Peterborough city centre, to the serviced office operator Regus. The letting of the building, which has been extensively refurbished to provide air-conditioned, open plan office accommodation, is the largest office letting in the city centre this year.

Richard Bains, of CIT, welcomed Regus to Stuart House to join Smiths Gore and Asprea, companies which have also recently taken space within the building.

Paul Farrow, from Savills Peterborough, which was acting for CIT's agents, said: "Regus has been considering an operation in Peterborough for several years, and I am delighted that we managed to attract them to Stuart House. Stuart House is extremely well located, being in the heart of the city centre and having easy access to the Peterborough ring road".

Agents for the deal were Savills Peterborough and Bidwells.

Hermes Real Estate has sold its Exeter Retail Park as it continues to focus on refurbishment and extension opportunities across the rest of its UK retail warehouse portfolio.

The fund manager has sold the park to CIT for £42.05m in a deal which reflects a net initial yield of 6.19% on the contracted income with five rent reviews currently outstanding.

Tenants at the retail-warehouse park which comprises 10 units on a total of 114,542 sq ft include Currys, Comet, Argos, Carpetright, Staples, Harveys, Allied Carpets, McDonalds and Carphone Warehouse.

In addition, at the start of this year shoe retailer Brantano signed a 15 year lease to trade from the park.

Russell Black of Hermes said: "The sale of Exeter Retail Park is in line with our business strategy and will allow the team to fully focus on major refurbishment and extension opportunities that are on-going within the Hermes Retail Warehouse Portfolio at The Maybird Shopping Park, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Tottenham Hale Retail Park, North London and the Pipps Hill Retail Park, Basildon."

CIT’s Richard Bains said: "We are delighted to have concluded this purchase, which provides a defensive income stream at an attractive initial yield, coupled with the potential to add value in the short to medium term"