Cantillon: Apple adds a shine to Battersea development

When London's Battersea Power Station was a mere proposal in the 1920s, Liberal MP Edward Hilton Young warned the fumes from its coal fires "will kill every green thing within two miles . . . rot all the buildings and bleach all the babies".

The station on the south bank of the River Thames, which started up in 1933, would prove more destructive in many ways after it was decommissioned in 1983. Dreams by developer David Roche, Hong Kong tycoon Victor Hwang and our own Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett to redevelop the iconic building, one of Europe's largest brick constructions, over the following decades came to naught.

Ronan and Barrett’s Real Estate Opportunities acquired the station and surrounding lands in 2006 for £400 million (then €595 million) and developed a master plan for the property that would have created 3,400 homes. However, it collapsed into administration five years later as REO failed to repay debt owned on it to Nama and Lloyds Banking Group.

However, it seems that three Malaysian companies – SP Setia, Sime Darby and the state-owned Employees Provident Fund – have succeeded where others have failed, having lured Apple to take up a 500,000 sq ft lease on the building.

The iPhone maker will establish its new UK headquarters at the station in 2021 as it moves 1,400 employees from eight offices around London to the property, which is costing £8 billion (€9.3 billion) to redevelop. Apple will take up 40 per cent of the office space in the building.

Still smarting in the wake of the European Commission landing it with a €13 billion bill earlier this month for allegedly unpaid taxes in Ireland, it’ll be nice for Apple to be associated with a good-news story on this side of the Atlantic.

Key to the Apple lease deal in London was one Robert Tincknell, who joined Ronan and Barrett's Treasury Holdings in 2002. After REO fell into administration and new ownership, Tinknell managed to remain on the project as the Malaysians appointed him chief executive of Battersea Power Station Development Company.

Nice to see at least one person emerging unscathed from the station’s fume-filled hisory.