Directors of Canary Wharf Group are in line for a £23m windfall following the £2.6bn Qatari-led takeover of the property firm’s parent.
Sir George Iacobescu, the head of Canary Wharf Group, will get the biggest share, £3.8m, from the sale of his Songbird shares to the Qatari Investment Authority and Canadian firm Brookfield Properties. In 2013, Iacobescu was awarded more shares that have not been released yet and would be worth a further £2.3m, taking his potential total windfall to £6.1m.
A Romanian engineer who escaped Nicolae Ceauşescu’s communist regime in the 1970s, Iacobescu has been involved in the construction of the Docklands financial district in east London from its beginnings in the late 1980s. He joined Olympia & York, the property company of the late Canadian billionaire Paul Reichmann, the mastermind behind the Docklands estate, and stayed with the project through Olympia & York’s bankruptcy. He became deputy chief executive of Canary Wharf Group when it was formed in 1995 and chief executive two years later.
The group’s annual report shows that three tranches of Songbird shares were awarded to directors and senior employees in recent years, worth £23m at the offer price of 350p. Iacobescu and the rest of the management will stay on after the takeover. Property Week reported that Peter Anderson, the group’s managing director of finance who also joined in the Reichmann era, will pocket more than £1m.
The Qataris, Songbird’s biggest shareholder, and Brookfield have won the support of the company’s three other major investors, the New York investor Simon Glick, China’s sovereign wealth fund and US investment bank Morgan Stanley. Songbird had waged a three-month battle to stay independent or find another buyer but finally admitted defeat on Wednesday.
The company was created in 2004 as an investment vehicle by Morgan Stanley and Glick, the son of a diamond merchant, during a bitter takeover battle for Canary Wharf group. They defeated Brookfield (then called Brascan), backed by Reichmann, who died in 2013.
The Qatar fund became a major investor in 2009 alongside China’s sovereign wealth fund, when Songbird needed emergency funds to refinance its debts. Its takeover by the Qataris and Brookfield means that things have come full circle.
