The iconic former NatWest Tower is to be sold.

Tower 42, the former NatWest Tower and the tallest building in the City of London, is to be put up for sale this week for £300 million ($461m).

The 600ft skyscraper will be put on the market this week by its owners Hermes Real Estate and BlackRock – which together form a consortium called Tower Limited Partnership.

If the tower sells, the deal would be the largest in the Square Mile this year, indicating a growing desire by investors to bid for trophy assets, and resurgence in the London commercial property market.

Furthermore, according to the Financial Times, “The weakness of sterling and warnings of a shortage of prime office space in the next few years have helped support the unexpected bounce in values for a market that had crashed harder than most owing to its exposure to the financial services sector.”

Tower 42, at 25 Old Broad Street and its surrounding estate, is an iconic building in London, built between 1971 and 1980 – and occupied by National Westminster Bank – hence the National Westminster Tower. Seen from above, the tower closely resembles the NatWest logo (three chevrons in a hexagonal arrangement). It was officially opened on 11 June 1981 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and was at the time, at 183 metres (600ft) high, the tallest building in Europe.

It is now the second tallest (beaten by Heron Tower at 202m, itself to be overshadowed by the Pinnacle in two years) skyscraper in the City of London and the sixth tallest in London as a whole.

It is now occupied by a number of tenants, producing a rental income of about £20m a year. The sale will comprise five other low-rise buildings next to the tower, including the Grade-I listed Gibson banking hall. The fund managers, who bought it in 1998, want to sell to rebalance portfolios given the size of the building in relation to other assets, and will be advised on the sale by Jones Lang LaSalle.