BP has completed the £250.1m sale and leaseback of its headquarters at 1 St James’s Square, SW1, to a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Lifestyle International Holdings.
It will continue to occupy the 121,000 sq ft of office space at the building for the next 24 months.
In a note to staff seen by EG, BP group regional president for Europe and UK boss Peter Mather said: “Our business needs are evolving. Owning and running a large, central London office space is expensive, unnecessary and out of step with modern corporate practice.
“We are leasing back the building for a period of two years. This means that no immediate change is required for SJS [St James’s Square] residents and it creates an opportunity for us to reimagine how and where a reinvented BP should be headquartered.
“I appreciate this is a significant change – SJS has been a key BP landmark for many years and, like me, many of you will have many happy memories of working there. However, this is the right decision for BP.
“In addition to the new offices in Budapest and Jakarta, the sale of SJS marks a shift in how BP approaches its office needs. You can expect to see further changes over the coming months.”
BP is yet to decide where it will be headquartered after this, but it has prelet more than 200,000 sq ft at Blackstone’s revamp of 25 North Colonnade, E14, at Canary Wharf (pictured) for as a new home for its trading operations, which EG revealed in March.
It has also leased all 50,000 sq ft at Douglas House in Fitzrovia, W1, which is owned by The Office Group, for its digital, innovation and engineering teams.
BP acquired 1 St James’s Square in 2001 from Ericsson Mobile Communications for £117m.
Lifestyle International’s chairman Thomas Lau is the brother of Joseph Lau, who was chairman and chief executive of Chinese Estates Holdings, which owns Goldman Sachs’ former office, River Court, on Fleet Street, EC4.
Earlier this year, Lifestyle International revealed it had built up a stake comprising more than 5.6m shares in Landsec. It paid on average £8.84 per share.
JLL advised BP on the deal and Allsop, Millennium Group and Mayer Brown advised Lifestyle International.
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