Big Tech Like Google, Meta And Others Ditch Office Space In London And Europe
- Big Tech groups dumped offices that were part of their European headquarters as macro headwinds halted the sector’s years of rapid expansion.
- Office values tumbled on both sides of the Atlantic due to rising interest rates, bleak macro outlook, and increased remote-based work, Financial Times reported.
- Meanwhile, staff demands for remote work during the pandemic turned some tech companies into accidental landlords forced to sublet surplus space in a challenging property market.
- Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google looked to evacuate one of its London offices in Belgrave House, Victoria, in 2023, to move most staff into its office in King’s Cross, under construction, and as more employees demanded remote-based work.
- Google also weighed subletting or abandoning more of its existing rented office space across London.
- In 2021, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) signed a lease on a 310,000-square-foot office in Fitzrovia in central London. Meta now tried to sublet the block without ever having moved in.
- Meta also looked for new tenants for hundreds of thousands of square feet in Dublin, Ireland. It tried to find tenants for its building in Fremont, California too.
- Meta paused a plan to expand in Austin, Texas, and is instead subletting. It has also terminated leases on two of its three offices in Manhattan, New York.
- Salesforce, Inc (NYSE: CRM) confirmed it would sublet part of a floor in its tower in the City of London.
- Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) looked to expand in London before the pandemic but have put the plans on hold.
- Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP) closed its San Francisco office in October after laying off 20% of staff in August. However, Snap plans to reopen the office and wants to expand. TikTok has enforced a similar working policy.
- China’s ByteDance is close to completing a deal to occupy the whole of Verdant, a new building close to its London headquarters in Farringdon. It also increased its office space in Dublin.
- Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
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