French buyers snap up £100 million worth of Aberdeen property

More than £100 million of French investment has flowed into Aberdeen’s commercial property market over the past 18 months, new research has revealed.

A string of deals over the last year and a half or so means that French buyers have now purchased £100.6m of office buildings, hotels, industrial units and other commercial property assets in the Granite City.

The analysis by commercial property consultancy Knight Frank shows that French buyers have also been behind some of the biggest deals in Aberdeen in the last couple of years. Among them are the sale of Helmerich & Payne’s (formerly KCA Deutag) Aberdeen headquarters, Alderan’s £28.5m purchase of Total E&P’s site on Moss Road, and the Travelodge Aberdeen Central hotel on Bridge Street.

Aberdeen's harbour and skyline.

Property experts noted that the majority of investment in the city from French buyers has been accounted for by open-ended property investment funds known as Société Civile de Placement Immobiliers (SCPIs). They have been investing heavily in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire since the end of the pandemic, with their purchases in the past 18 months including the 3T Survivex facility in Dyce.

Earlier this year, Knight Frank research found that French investors were one of the most active international buyers in the wider Scottish commercial property market, accounting for some £450m of investment since 2024.

Douglas Binnie, capital markets partner at Knight Frank, said: “French investors have been very active in Scotland, and particularly Aberdeen. On the relatively rare occasions where they haven’t been successful in acquiring an asset in the city, they have usually been among the underbidders.

“SCPIs have been involved in a number of deals in Aberdeen - particularly for some of the city’s larger assets that have traded hands in recent years. These buyers tend to favour cleaner properties, with minimal asset management requirements, which can provide a return of at least 7 per cent, which is achievable in Aberdeen on assets that meet their preferred criteria.”

Matt Park, a partner at Knight Frank Aberdeen, added: “A big part of the attraction is the value on offer in Aberdeen, with yields higher than the UK average and even other parts of Scotland. Buyer and seller expectations are comparatively aligned in the Granite City, which is making deals quicker to reach, and buyers are able to secure quality assets on double-digit returns in some cases.”

The research comes after Knight Frank recently noted that Aberdeen could see a new headline rent being set this year after the city witnessed the best quarter for office take-up since before the pandemic.

Activity was boosted by one particular bumper deal - the relocation of CB&I Asset Solutions to Kingswells - alongside a flurry of other deals completing between April and June. The firm’s analysis found there were 221,213-square-feet of office deals in the city during the second quarter of 2026 - more than three times the 68,482 sq ft recorded in the first three months of the year and more than double the same period last year (102,412 sq ft).

Aberdeen closing in on record office rent as take-up hits post-pandemic high