Qataris Raise Bet on London Real Estate to Protect Gas Wealth

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has been buying up some of the highest quality properties in London, as the Persian Gulf country takes advantage of lower prices and the pound’s weakness to invest its gas wealth.

Barwa Real Estate Co., controlled by the fund, yesterday agreed to buy Park House for 250 million pounds ($370 million). The office and retail project is the biggest development in about 40 years on London’s Oxford Street. The fund also bought London’s Harrods department store last month and in 2009 became the largest investor in Songbird Estates Plc, which owns most of the Canary Wharf office estate. Another unit of the fund acquired the U.S. embassy building in London last year.