Samsung Fire headquarters up for sale at about $746 mn

The Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co. headquarters building in Seoul is on the market at a valuation of more than 1 trillion won ($746 million), investment banking sources said on Wednesday.

The property owner Koramco REITs Management and Trust Co. has sent out requests for proposal (RFPs) to major real estate firms to divest of the landmark office in Gangnam, a key business district in the South Korean capital. Koramco acquired the building for 748.4 billion won in September 2018.

The building, dubbed The Asset, has a floor area of 81,119 square meters with 32 floors above ground and seven underground. Its purchase price in 2018 was 9.2 million won per square meter, a record high for an office deal in Korea at the time.

The property for sale is one of the three towers called Samsung Town. Samsung Group’s construction and trading unit Samsung C&T Corp. built the buildings in 2008.

The other two towers are used as the headquarters of Samsung Life Insurance Co. and Samsung Securities Co., respectively. 

In 2021, Koramco changed the name for the property from Samsung C&T Seocho to The Asset, to attract tenants who are not Samsung Group affiliates.

According to global real estate manager CBRE, office deals in Seoul will reach 9 trillion won this year.

Transactions in the Gangnam area will increase at least 20% on-year as some investors are planning to sell their properties for liquidity amid increased risks in real estate project financing and refinancing, the firm said.

Write to Byeong-Hwa Ryu at hwahwa@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.