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WeWork courts London banks post-Brexit
$20B startup increasingly inking corporate deals on both sides of the pond
WeWork is making aggressive moves in London to sell space to global banks that are uncertain of their plans post-Brexit.
The $20 billion co-working startup has been going on a hiring spree to attract corporate clients, including a recent hire from Bank of America specifically to go after the banking sector, the Financial Times reported.
Those familiar with the company’s strategy said it is looking to capitalize on uncertainty among big financial institutions following Brexit by selling flexible office space and offering the opportunity to remove long and costly office leases from their balance sheets.
WeWork in October struck a deal to buy Blackstone’s London office complex Devonshire Square for $785 million, and this year it’s aggressively snapped up space in the city, including large offices in Moorgate – the company’s largest site worldwide.
More than one fifth of the company’s clients are firms with 1,000 or more global employees. In New York City, WeWork has struck large membership deals with Amazon and Microsoft, and subleased an entire building to IBM. [FT] – Rich Bockmann