(Bloomberg) -- The BBC has agreed to sell and rent back its Elstree Centre studio in northwest London, home to programs including long-running soap opera EastEnders, as it looks to raise cash.

The broadcaster has sold the site to AXA IM Alts, the alternative investment business of French insurer AXA SA, according to a statement Tuesday. The BBC was seeking about £70 million ($88.5 million) when it put the site up for sale in 2022, the Daily Telegraph reported at the time. A representative for Axa declined to comment on the price.

The government froze the license fee that funds the BBC in 2022 for two-years, putting pressure on the broadcaster’s finances. While the BBC has cut spending on some of its output, it has also turned to asset sales as a means to generate cash. 

Television and film studios have been a rare bright spot in a commercial real estate market that’s been upended by rising interest rates, as investors including Axa and Blackstone Inc. bet on increased demand driven by the rise of streaming services. 

“With the signing of BBC Elstree Centre we will be acquiring one of the oldest working TV & film studios in the UK, with a history dating back almost 110 years,” said John O’Driscoll, Axa IM Alts’ global co-head of real estate. “The structure of the transaction allows the BBC to continue its production on the site for at least another 25 years, while providing us with the opportunity to invest in the site to create new world class studios.”

Strictly Come Dancing

The deal, which is due to complete in 2025, will see the BBC rent back part of the studio campus for 25 years. The 16-acre campus includes seven stages, workshops, offices and post production facilities. Axa plans to explore options to redevelop part of the site into a new studio campus, according to the statement.

The BBC bought the site in 1984 for its new soap opera EastEnders, which has been filmed there ever since. The facility, located in Borehamwood to the northwest of London, is also home to the BBC’s election coverage and is part of a wider campus of production facilities known as the Elstree Studios, where the British version of Strictly Come Dancing has been filmed since 2012.

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