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JPMorgan weighs London HQ options as it grows out of Canary Wharf tower, sources say

JPMorgan is evaluating alternatives for its European head office in London as the fastexpanding Wall Street bank outgrows its existing tower in London's Canary Wharf financial district, three sources familiar with the matter informed Reuters.

The bank has actually started examining options for where to base around 12,000 personnel in London, with a decision likely to be made some time after U.S. personnel move into their brand-new worldwide headquarters in New York next year, the sources said.

JPMorgan's European head office has been at 25 Bank Street given that 2012, after it acquired the tower from collapsed competitor Lehman Brothers following the worldwide monetary crisis.

Like other U.S. financial investment banks, JPMorgan under CEO Jamie Dimon has actually been pushing for employees to go back to the workplace after the COVID-19 pandemic. That, combined with growing headcount at the bank and its British retail subsidiary Chase UK, has actually increased the urgency of needing more area.

Its present office at Bank Street, a 33-storey tower with 1.1 million square feet, is full up, one of the sources said.

The bank might need as much as 1.5-2.0 million sq feet of area in London in future, another of the sources stated.

JPMorgan is thinking about three alternatives - upgrading 25 Bank Street, building a brand-new tower in Canary Wharf on land it already owns, or transferring to main London - the sources stated.

Its deliberations will be closely watched by the property market.

Leaving Canary Wharf is the least most likely alternative provided the large amount of office space required, two of the sources stated.

The bank has actually started preparing plans to spend possibly numerous countless pounds updating its existing office, 2 separate sources said.

No final decisions have actually been made and any move could take years to execute, the sources said, speaking anonymously while talking about confidential plans.

JPMorgan and Canary Wharf Group, which handles the east London financial district, decreased to comment.

Canary Wharf has seen numerous high profile departures considering that the pandemic, consisting of HSBC, which is relocating to a much smaller workplace in the main City of London district. HSBC is now worried the brand-new structure will be too small and is thinking about taking additional area in another structure, Bloomberg News has reported.

One of the choices being thought about by JPMorgan is building a completely brand-new workplace at an uninhabited plot to the west of the Canary Wharf estate, known as Riverside South, which it obtained in 2008, 2 of the sources stated. JPMorgan previously got preparing permission for a new devlopment there, however shelved the idea.

Any relocate to the City of London would be tough as few sites might accommodate the size of structure required, however landowners might get creative to secure such a valued occupant, 2 of the sources stated.

A 1.5 million sq ft structure would be approximately two times the size of UBS's 700,000 sq feet 'groundscraper' building in the Broadgate location of the City of London, among the largest investment bank offices in the central district.

JPMorgan's property management organization will stay at its base by the Thames in London's Blackfriars area no matter the choice on the Canary Wharf workplace, 2 of the sources said.

(source: Reuters)