JPMorgan Chase has said it will build a 3 million square-foot tower in Canary Wharf in a boost for the financial centre in London’s Docklands.
The announcement comes after JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon praised UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’ focus on “financial discipline” in this week’s budget, in which banks avoided an increase in industry levies.
The US bank said the new building, located at its Riverside development in Canary Wharf, would house up to 12,000 staff and serve as the bank’s UK headquarters and its “most significant” presence in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“The UK government’s priority of economic growth has been a critical factor in helping us make this decision,” Dimon said on Thursday.
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The Treasury had asked banks to make public and prominent endorsements of the Budget as Reeves sought to shore up support for her policies, the Financial Times reported previously.
Goldman Sachs on Thursday said it would add 500 jobs to its Birmingham office in the coming years, doubling its headcount in the city. The Wall Street bank signed a lease in 2022 for 110,000 sq ft, with the option to expand if needed.
JPMorgan had stepped up planning for the new tower in recent months as it decided that refitting its existing office in the Docklands financial district would incur significant costs, while few options in the City could meet its requirements.
The site of the new office, bought by JPMorgan in 2008, was originally intended as the bank’s European headquarters, but executives instead opted to move employees into Lehman Brothers’ former European headquarters at 25 Bank Street after the financial crisis.
The tower would take six years to build once “necessary approvals and agreements” were in place, the bank said. The planned development was “subject to a continuing positive business environment in the UK”, it added.
Apart from its Bank Street building, where 9,500 employees work, JPMorgan has two other London sites. It owns 60 Victoria Embankment in central London, which holds more than 2,000 people, and rents space for 1,500 employees at One Cabot Square in Canary Wharf.
The bank said it planned eventually to have its London employees split between the new tower and 60 Victoria Embankment. In the meantime, it would spruce up the interior of its Bank Street office and later “consider its options” for that building.
The decision is a boon for Canary Wharf Group, which will co-develop the project. JPMorgan is separately being advised by Sir George Iacobescu, the former chair of CWG. The plans include the redevelopment of the Canary Wharf dock and the creation of new public parkland around the building.
JPMorgan employees in New York have just moved into a new 60-storey, 2.5 million sq ft skyscraper designed by Foster + Partners that cost the bank $3 billion (€2.6 billion). The bank said its London tower, also to be designed by Foster + Partners, would feature terraces and restaurants.
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