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UBS has begun the process of moving Credit Suisse out of the fallen bank’s Canary Wharf skyscraper in a blow to the London financial district, which is already losing HSBC as a landmark tenant.
Credit Suisse staff in London were told in a memo on Tuesday that teams would begin to move to UBS’s UK head office in the City. People with knowledge of the plans said all staff were expected to leave Canary Wharf by the end of next year.
UBS agreed to rescue Credit Suisse six months ago in the most significant bank takeover since the global financial crisis.
“In an effort to bring the first teams together in one shared building, we’ll soon begin moving a number of colleagues to 5 Broadgate and exiting a number of floors at One Cabot Square,” said the memo, seen by the Financial Times.
“Consolidating our real estate footprint to bring colleagues together in order to reinforce the way we engage with clients and employees is an important element of our real estate strategy.”
Credit Suisse’s move comes at a difficult time for Canary Wharf, after HSBC decided to leave its 42-storey headquarters after 20 years as a key tenant in the dockland’s financial district in favour of smaller premises in the City of London.
The extra floors at One Cabot Square will add to the growing amount of Canary Wharf office space on the market from former bank tenants. Barclays this year appointed agents to market about half a million square feet in one of its buildings after moving staff to its nearby headquarters as part of a long-term adjustment of its office space.
The vast open floors and high-rise towers on offer in the docklands have fallen out of favour since Covid-19, as companies prefer centrally located offices with perks like roof terraces to lure reluctant employees back to in-person work. Office vacancy in Canary Wharf remains higher than in other London districts at 14 per cent, compared with 11 per cent in the City and 6 per cent in the west end, according to CoStar data.
The memo, which was first reported by Financial News, also confirmed UBS had begun phasing out Credit Suisse’s brand in the UK and Guernsey, replacing signs with UBS logos.
UBS began the process of removing Credit Suisse’s international brand in New York last month, but it has yet to decide what to do about the bank’s brand in Switzerland, despite confirming it will retain and subsume its former rival’s domestic business.
Credit Suisse was one of the first major tenants of the Canary Wharf estate, with the Docklands financial district the brainchild of Michael von Clemm, chair of Credit Suisse First Boston.
One Cabot Square has been Credit Suisse’s UK headquarters since 1991, but in recent years the Swiss lender has reduced its footprint in the building as staff numbers have dropped. It currently occupies nine out of the building’s 21 floors.
Credit Suisse sold One Cabot Square to the Qatar Investment Authority in 2012 but took a long-term lease on it to 2034. The building underwent an expensive revamp just before Covid-19 hit, with executive floors spruced up.
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