London has been Olly Olsen and Charlie Green’s stomping ground for 16 years. The two founders of The Office Group have grown the business from a single office located along Grays Inn Road, WC1, to acquiring a total of 1.8m sq ft of space across the capital city, with this year seeing the company open three new workspaces in Holborn, WC1, Waterloo station, SE1, and Hammersmith, W6.
Now they have set their sights much further afield. As EG revealed last month, Olsen and Green have chosen Germany as the destination for the business’s entrance to the international market, securing five buildings across Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg to launch the TOG brand.
The two sit down with EG in its new Holborn office to outline their plans for international growth, while looking to continue the company’s expansion into London and the UK’s major cities.
The German focus
With five buildings in Germany under its belt, TOG is now in advanced negotiations to acquire one further space in Munich.
It will open its first building – the new 73,000 sq ft Oper 46 office in Frankfurt’s central business district – in spring 2020. The group’s largest building in the country, the c105,000 sq ft seven-storey Presshaus, is in Berlin. Also in the city, TOG has taken up 47,000 sq ft within Kontorhaus, a Blackstone-owned building on Friedrichstraße, and a further 62,000 sq ft located at Unter den Linden.
In Hamburg, the company has secured a 15-year lease on Haus am Domplatz in which it will lease four floors across 38,000 sq ft.
Although Olsen says that Germany “is a focus” for TOG, the company has several other “major” European cities on its hit list. But Olsen explains that both he and Green want to grow the group’s presence by responding to the individual demands of each location and the unique history of each city.
“We are carefully considering the different countries and different cultures in order to understand how we can go in and create authentically what we feel is the right workspace that is best for that city.”
Back in the UK
While TOG is busy setting its sights on Europe, Olsen and Green say they have by no means forgotten their roots: they have big plans for entrenching the company further in the London market.
Green says this growth is set to continue. TOG should be able to “comfortably” double its 1.8m sq ft of space in the capital within the next three to four years, Green adds, but any future acquisitions rely on TOG being able to “find the right buildings on the right terms: that is acquiring through buying the properties or through leasing them”.
Currently, the assets that TOG owns make up almost two-thirds of the value of the business. “We want to grow that capital base, and we think that is important,” Green adds.
TOG has most recently announced it has acquired the Media Village on Great Titchfield Street, W1, which extends to approximately 47,000 sq ft, and the Grade II listed Liberty House on Regent Street, W1, at 36,000 sq ft.
Beyond the capital
TOG’s presence is weighted mostly in London, but it has two additional locations in the UK outside of the capital: St Nicholas House in Bristol; and No. 1 Aire Street in Leeds.
Olsen says the team is eyeing land in most of the major regions across the country. “We do want to have some representation in Manchester and Birmingham. We should be in Scotland – in Edinburgh and Glasgow – and we should be in Cambridge and Oxford,” he says.
But the pair are content to take their time when it comes to expanding outside of London, Olsen explains, and will wait until the right opportunity presents itself.
“Given a magic wand, we would be operating in those key cities today,” he says. “The reason we are not is because we are yet to find the right buildings at the right prices. What we won’t do is grow for growth’s sake. This is not a strategy simply to get as much critical mass and as big a portfolio as we can.”
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