The deal has been agreed between the global lender and WeWork, in one of its biggest-ever European deals for the shared office provider. HSBC will rent more than 1,135 desks in Waterloo, as part of a multi-year arrangement in Two Southbank Place. The bank’s global headquarters is located down the road in 8 Canada Square, in Canary Wharf, and has staff located elsewhere in London. Capital footprint includes its private bank in Mayfair and digital staff in the Bluefin Building south of the Thames.
Two Southbank Place has enough space for 6,000 desks and is due to open in part in July and October.
The building is leased from property developer Almacantar.
Chris Lewis, a director at Devono Cresa, which advises office tenants, told The Financial Times: “Corporates don’t want to hold long, expensive leases if they can find alternative ways to procure elements of their footprint.
“The benefit of something like WeWork is they have the volume and the bulk to do significant deals.
“If you converted it to a conventional requirement, the capital expenditure alone on a deal of that size would be quite significant.”
HSBC has been contacted for comment by Express.co.uk.
Speaking last month, a top HSBC executive has urged a swift solution to Brexit in an interview with Sky News.
Chief financial officer Ewen Stevenson went as far as to warn that the UK was on a list of world markets that HSBC was concerned about.
Mr Stevenson told Ian King: “Overall, if we look around the world and talk about markets we are concerned about the UK is certainly on that list.
“Brexit uncertainty is creating weakness both in business confidence and consumer confidence and we have seen for some time corporate activity and personal activity slow down.
“As soon as we can get to a solution on Brexit and get confidence restored the better I think for the economy.”
His comments came after HSBC reported a 31 percent profit increase in the first quarter of the year.
Profit before tax soared to £4.8billion in January through to March, up from £3.7billion for the same period last year.