EXCLUSIVE: Meta, mum or dad firm of Facebook, is closing its Frank Gehry-designed London base, Deadline has discovered. It will additional cut back the variety of workplaces it occupies in London, the place the tech large has its largest workers presence exterior of the U.S.
The information Meta is shuttering its sizable HQ at One Rathbone Square, within the metropolis’s upmarket Fitzrovia district, comes shortly after it paid £149 million ($189 million) to interrupt a long-term lease on one other workplace, near London’s Regent’s Park.
Meta moved into Rathbone Square in 2017. It has housed advertising and marketing and gross sales groups in addition to engineers and builders. It has additionally been the placement for a devoted incubator area for start-ups.
After the Rathbone Square exit, Meta’s UK presence will likely be targeting two present areas, in Brock Street, near Euston, and close by Kings Cross.
Meta advised staffers in regards to the change in December. It confirmed the workplace closure to Deadline. “We’re looking forward to consolidating our teams at Rathbone Square into our recently opened King’s Cross campus and our newly expanded Brock Street office,” a spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
There was a dramatic headcount discount at Meta via 2023. The firm mentioned there wouldn’t be any discount in UK workers numbers due to the Rathbone Square workplace closure, which comes as the corporate reduces its UK property footprint after cutbacks and a transfer to hybrid working.
Last yr Meta opened a brand new campus in Dublin, which is its official worldwide headquarters, and it employs about 2,000 staffers in Ireland. The final filings, from 2022, confirmed Meta had 7,000 workers within the UK, however that was earlier than deep cuts which have reportedly taken that complete to under 5,000.
The above-mentioned King’s Cross campus was opened by King Charles and Queen Camilla (then the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall) in March 2022 after a three-year construct.
Meta’s lease on the Rathbone Square workplace reportedly ran for fifteen years. It wouldn’t say whether or not it’s required to compensate the property homeowners for transferring out.
Rathbone Square was offered to Deka Immobilien in February of 2017 for £375 million as a part of a deal between two of the German firm’s actual property funds. Deka advised Deadline that it has not obtained any funds from Meta to chop quick its lease. It wouldn’t touch upon Meta vacating its workplaces however mentioned it’s assured it might shortly re-let the property if vital. Given the transfer will happen over coming months, the state of affairs round any potential related prices Meta will incur stays unclear.
Last September, London Land, which owned workplace area near London’s Regent’s Park that was being refurbed for Meta, mentioned the Facebook and Instagram mum or dad would pay it £149 million to interrupt the lease on the property. Meta staffers had not even moved into the workplaces.