BCO 2013: Developers should look to the Far East, not to the TMT sector, for growth, the former chairman of Land Securities told delegates at the BCO conference today.
Lord Myners warned that much of the established London office market was fast becoming obsolete because of changes to “tenant specifications at a pace which could not have been imagined”.
“Buildings completed 20 years ago no longer meet tenant expectations,” he said. “Demand for large trading floors from investment banks will be a thing of the past. New demand will come from the Far East – partly from banks and insurance companies whose specifications are very different from traditional European ones.”
And the one-time City minister in Gordon Brown’s government dismissed the growth of the TMT sector as “a bit of a bubble”.
“They are not big rent payers,” he said. “Key for them is volume not specification.”
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damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
