Recently in Admin Category

At our quarterly breakfast briefing on Thursday 24 January we will be presenting our research findings on 2012 and revealing our league tables for the London offices market. The event will be held at Olswang's offices, 90 High Holborn, and starts at 8am.

Click here to register your attendance >> 

The first three quarters of 2012 have brought little to be optimistic about in the London office market, but Q4 has shown signs that things might be on the up with a number of significant deals.

At our breakfast briefing we will unravel the quarter to see if Q4 has provided a much needed fillip and prevented 2012 from being a year to forget. Before we wrap-up proceedings we will also see how the agents have fared against one another in our league tables for Q4 disposals and investments, and 2012 as a whole for acquisitions and disposals.

There is no charge for this event, but you will need to register your attendance and that of any colleagues by completing this registration form. 

Due to limited capacity places will be awarded on a first come, first served basis.  

This last week has seen some noticeable deals in the London office market.  Whilst this blog is often concerned with lettings, the chatter around the office this week has been on deals of another kind.

On Tuesday CBRE announced that it had acquired EA Shaw.  The potential implications of this deal for the London Offices Market Analysis are discussed in a blog post here, by Stacey Meadwell.  From an office agency perspective it seems like a good fit and will allow CBRE more of a foothold in a market that over the last couple of years has seen a lot of activity for the likes of local players such as EA Shaw themselves, Farebrother, but also for the bigger agencies through Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield. 

The fit also seems to work pretty well in residential terms following CBRE's statement of intent last Spring when it entered into partnership with Countrywide, recruited Andrew Pratt from Grainger and Alex Greaves from Harrods Estates.  CBRE will be hoping that the acquisition of EA Shaw will give the property superpower access to the kind of expertise that has seen the Midtown agent disposing on schemes such as Central St Giles.

This week has also seen the announcement of a statement of collaboration, if you will, between south east and Birmingham agency Vail Williams and London office agency Crossland Otter Hunt.  It would appear that the pair will look to share expertise and skills rather than actually merge.

I have heard rumblings of numerous mergers and acquisitions this year but neither of these were on the list!  Anyone prepared to hazard a guess at who will join forces in 2013?.....

Last week research undertaken by Driver Jonas Deloitte prompted the question whether the 2.4 million sq ft of skyscraper space under construction in London warranted the demand. The space in question, which could accomodate approximately 25,000 workers, includes:

52-54 Lime Street, The Scalpel, 560,000 sq ft. Planning permission has been submitted by WR Berkeley, who hope construction will commence in 2013 and complete in 2017. 80,000-100,000 sq ft is reserved for the insurance giant which is funding the project.

Leadenhall Building, The Cheesegrater, 587,867 sq ft for completion in 2014. Aon have prelet 191,988 sq ft for its new global HQ.

20 Fenchurch Street, The Walkie Talkie, 661,504 sq ft for completion in 2014. Of which Merkel have prelet 51,498 sq ft; RJ Kiln prelet 78,226 sq ft and Royal Sun Alliance recently confirmed they will occupy 70,000 sq ft.

24 Bishopsgate, The Pinnacle, 1,257,343 sq ft - currently on hold due to a legal dispute between Brookfield and the developers over non payment of fees and breach of contract.

Not to mention the Shard which will offer 574,638 sq ft of office space, none of which has been prelet.

Greeted as a fairly conservative figure, the main cause for concern amongst sceptics was the fear of mass job cuts by investment banks, already a very real problem. It was reported on Friday that Nomura had sublet 30,000 sq ft of space, left vacant by job cuts, at their headquarters in Watermark Place to M & G, which will act as overflow for their adjacent HQ at Governors House.

BNP Paribas, who have just been confirmed as the Post Office's proprty portfolio managers, released a paper that while unrelated, compliments DJD's quite nicely. Their findings suggest that the dynamic and economically driven TMT sector could easily fill this excess space. the research shows that the sector's demand is considerably outstripping other sectors and, in total, BNP PRE forecast that TMT sector demand for London office space will hit 4.6 million sq ft by the end of 2014.

Traditionally TMT's have based themselves in the West End, however, the establishment of Tech City, the hub centered on East London's Old Street roundabout is attracting a multitude of start up tech companies. Just to give you an idea, tenants include; Thin Martian at 32-37 Cowper Street, Last FM at Karen House, Display Digital and Solid State Group at 86-90 Paul Street. More established firms here incluse Yammer at 80 Great Eastern Street and Google who opened a new campus at 4-5 Bonhill Street.

As TMT's expand they become increasingly footloose and coupled with improvements in technology, such as cloud computing, are taking advantage of their geographical flexibility. Facebook, Apple and Informa have all chosen to locate themselves in the West End as opposed to the tech savvy East.

If BNP's prediction comes true we're going to see a huge demand for office space and this is before the estimated several million sq ft of floor space up for lease renewal elsewhere in the city between 2014 and 2016 is taken into consideration. I am not suggesting that we're suddenly going to see Facebook and Google move into the financial district, but for the 63% of respondents who believe that the right office space is crucial for building the right brand and 55% who believe that having the right office is essential for attracting the right talent, being a TMT in London right now isn't the worst thing in the world.