HSBC aims to sublet 50% of its London-based headquarters at Canary Wharf, ceo Michael Geoghegan told a financial conference in Lisbon last week. 'I've challenged us within seven years to have 50% of that building empty, to sublet to someone else. I don't think we’re a really progressive, perceptive company if 8,000 people have to get up every day at an unearthly hour and go back again,' the Times newspaper reported.
HSBC aims to sublet 50% of its London-based headquarters at Canary Wharf, ceo Michael Geoghegan told a financial conference in Lisbon last week. 'I've challenged us within seven years to have 50% of that building empty, to sublet to someone else. I don't think we’re a really progressive, perceptive company if 8,000 people have to get up every day at an unearthly hour and go back again,' the Times newspaper reported.
Geoghegan said he expected that at least 4,000 employees would work from home or on the road by 2014 rather than at desks in the bank's headquarters. HSBC started preparing for its downsizing in April when it sold its headquarters to the Spanish property group Metrovacesa in the UK's biggest single property deal for £ 1.1 bn ( EUR 1.6 bn). It has an agreement to lease back the premises for 20 years.
