Telefónica is reportedly set to offload its HQ and telephone exchange building in Madrid, Spain.

It has been on the table for months, but it seems that the sale of the Telefónica building in the heart of Madrid’s Gran Vía is now underway.

Located at number 28 Gran Vía, the building is one of the company’s most iconic properties, inaugurated in 1930 and one of the first skyscrapers built in Spain.

The sale, potentially valued at more than €300 million ($348m), has been entrusted by Telefónica to the investment bank Rothschild, which will be responsible for identifying potential buyers among investment funds and high-net-worth individuals interested in unique properties.

The design of the original building allowed it to house efficient central offices and a telephone exchange with capacity for 40,000 automatic lines. Today, the building combines office space, commercial areas, and the well-known Espacio Fundación Telefónica exhibition space, which has become a cultural and technological meeting point in Madrid.

The transaction is part of the policy of efficiency and strategic management of real estate assets that Telefónica has promoted under the new leadership of Marc Murtra.

The sale is part of an initiative to rotate non-strategic assets, reduce costs, and provide liquidity for new value-added developments, as was already done in 2019 with the divestment of Torre Diagonal 00 in Barcelona.

Telefónica this year completed the switch-off of its copper network, closing some 8,000 telephone exchanges across Spain in the process.