Real Estate: "Pricey Mayfair Pushes Hedge Funds Out"

From the FT via FINalternatives:

Mayfair remains the place to be for hedge funds in London. The thing is, fewer and fewer of them actually are.
The swanky neighborhoods of Mayfair and St. James's, home to almost 70% of central London's hedge funds five years ago, now count only half of them, Cushman and Wakefield says. Many hedge funds, especially smaller ones, are increasingly looking somewhat farther afield to—slightly—cheaper neighborhoods adjacent to the traditional hedge fund heartland, Knightsbridge, Marylebone and Soho, the Financial Times reports.

"Investors don't want to see hedge funds—particularly smaller ones—spending their money on swanky offices," Cushman's Henry Peto tells the FT. Mayfair and St. James's boast the second-highest office rents in the world, after Hong Kong.

Still, the search for deals on digs has only gone so far, Peto says.

"No one really wants to be more than two or three minutes away from Mayfair. When investors come into town for 24 or 48 hours, hedge funds want to be close to where they will be."