A Chinese investment company backed by a state sovereign wealth fund has agreed a deal to buy Drapers Gardens in the City for £285m.

Ginkgo Tree Investment, which is associated with the $200bn China Investment Corporation, has agreed terms on a deal to buy the 292,500 sq ft building from investment manager Evans Randall.

The deal would be one of the first large-scale direct investments in the UK completed by a Chinese investment company, with such firms until now choosing to invest through funds or buying stakes in listed companies like Songbird.

The price to be paid by Ginkgo represents a yield of less than 5%, a level equivalent to that which investors were paying at the top of the market in 2007.

Evans Randall bought the building for £243m eighteen months ago. It is leased to Blackrock on a 25-year lease with fixed uplifts, hence the appeal to large global investors looking to find safe investments. Some of the proceeds from the sale will be used pay off £210m of debt secured against the building.

The building was completed in 2009, having been developed by a joint venture between Canary Wharf Group, Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds and Exemplar.

Evans Randall has been marketing the building with several months, with Samsung Life and Boston Properties having gone under offer to buy the property before deals fell away.

Ginkgo has made the investment through RREEF, the real estate investment arm of Deutsche Bank. Evans Randall is being advised by CBRE.

All parties declined to comment.