Pharmaceuticals company Astrazeneca this week announced sweeping job cuts that could see it exit as much as 800,000 sq ft of its UK property.
The Cheshire-based firm on Thursday announced plans to axe 7,300 jobs globally over two years. The move, part of ongoing restructuring, will take the firm’s total reduction in headcount to almost 30,000 since 2007.
The latest redundancies were revealed as the firm announced a 2% fall in revenue to $33.3bn (£21.1bn) in 2011 and a 4% dip in profit to $13.2bn.
Late last year, Astrazeneca, which has a circa 10m sq ft UK portfolio of mainly freehold assets, closed a 69-acre site at Charnwood near Loughborough. Unions this week said they expected around 300 of the latest job cuts to be from its site in Alderley Park, Cheshire, with further cuts at UK sites such as Macclesfield, Luton, Avlon near Bristol, and Brixham in Devon.
According to Drivers Jonas Deloitte, firms expect to save at least 100 sq ft for each job lost, meaning that Astrazeneca could reduce its UK occupational space by as much as 8% if the bulk of the cuts are made here.
“I think Astrazeneca will begin cherry-picking preferred properties very soon, and will look to exit and downsize buildings where possible,” said a source.
Mike Mitchell, health care analyst at Seymour Pierce, added: “Astrazeneca’s focus at the end of the year was streamlining in the US, with more than 1,000 sales jobs cut. It is very possible the search will be more extensive now, and we see this equating to more reductions in the UK headcount, as well as its properties.”
A spokesman for Astrazeneca said: “At this stage it is too early to interpret the impact of these changes on our UK property portfolio. Some of the changes will impact property in other countries in which we operate.”
The group’s 75,000 sq ft HQ at Two Kingdom Street, W8, is not expected to be affected by the redundancies, nor is its neuroscience hub in Cambridge.
Jones Lang LaSalle was appointed to look after Astrazeneca’s global portfolio in 2009. It was unavailable for comment.
joanna.bourke@estatesgazette.com
