HSBC will move its global headquarters from Canary Wharf to a smaller central London office after its lease expires. This marks the end of two decades at Canary Wharf. This move will be a major blow to Canary Wharf, and highlights the trend of companies reducing office space to adapt to homeworking.
In a memo sent to employees, the bank stated that they expected to move to their new office by the end of 2026. They chose Panorama St Paul’s at City of London. This building was formerly a BT office and was redeveloped and reopened by Orion Capital Managers.
HSBC moved to Canary Wharf in 2002 when Sir John Bond, then chairman of the company, moved into the 42-storey Norman Foster designed offices. The bank spent $1.2bn moving retail, business and corporate bankers from offices spread across London to the Canary Wharf Tower, which features HSBC’s two lions at its entrance.
The group announced in recent years that it aims to reduce its real estate costs by 40 percent.
Since the coronavirus outbreak, Canary Wharf has seen a decrease in full-time workers. Noel Quinn, HSBC’s chief executive in 2021, abolished all 42nd executive floors of the skyscraper located in east London and converted the space to client meeting rooms and collaboration spaces. The open-plan floor below is where executives now hot-desk.
Quinn, at the time, said that “our offices were empty the majority of the time due to our travels around the globe.” It was a waste.
The global bank regularly re-evaluated whether it should keep its headquarters in the UK, or move to Hong Kong. This sparked a political controversy just before the 2015 general elections. In September, the bank announced that its global headquarters would remain in the UK.
HSBC is also reviewing its office space in other countries. It cut 110 staff in Switzerland last year and reduced its office space in Geneva because clients were withdrawing money. It also moved its US headquarters into a newly developed Tishman Speyer tower on the West Side of Manhattan.
HSBC stated that the move to a smaller and more centralised office would allow it to meet its commitments of net zero, as well as allowing flexible working. The Qatar Investment Authority owns the current tower, as does Canary Wharf.
City of London Corporation chair Chris Hayward called HSBC’s move of headquarters “a huge vote of faith for the City”.
Many companies are looking to consolidate their offices to reduce carbon emissions and to adapt to hybrid work. Clifford Chance, a law firm, announced last fall that it would be moving from its Canary Wharf offices to a building with ‘net zero’ energy in the City.
After the spread of the flu pandemic, the French bank Societe Generale decided to sublet some office space.
According to CoStar, the data provider, office vacancies in London have increased from 5% in March to 9% in May. They are especially high in Canary Wharf where the vacancy rate was more than 10% in May compared to just 3% in certain parts of West End.
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