Deutsche Bank Joins Wall Street Exodus for View of Central Park
One mock-up of the bank’s new trading floor shows an expansive view of Central Park.
(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG is literally leaving Wall Street, moving its New York headquarters to midtown Manhattan as the German investment bank embarks on a broad shakeup of its U.S. operations.
The company will lease 1.1 million square feet of office space at Columbus Circle, slashing its footprint in the city by 30 percent, the head of Deutsche Bank’s Americas business, Tom Patrick, wrote in a memo to staff on Friday. The firm, which has been leasing offices at 60 Wall Street, will begin the move in the third quarter of 2021.
One mock-up of the bank’s new trading floor shows an expansive view of Central Park.
The departure from Wall Street is a milestone for the historic financial district in lower Manhattan, following a long exodus of major firms to other parts of the city. Banks remaining closest now include Goldman Sachs Group Inc., headquartered near the site of the original World Trade Center at 200 West Street, while Citigroup Inc. is a stone’s throw away in Tribeca. More of the industry is further uptown.
“The relocation is an investment in our clients, in our employees and in our future long-term presence in the U.S.,” Patrick wrote in the memo. “The new location will result in closer proximity to key clients, consolidate New York activities and provide employees with access to modern, state-of-the-art facilities, technology and amenities while retaining access to critical transportation links.”
The decision followed a 16-month review, according to the memo. Yet it comes just as new Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing sets out to restructure the investment bank, including scaling back operations in the U.S. That overhaul may eliminate more than 10 percent of its workforce there, a person briefed on the matter said last week.
In 2001, Deutsche Bank bought 60 Wall Street from JPMorgan Chase & Co. as the Frankfurt-based company sought to house the workers and the staff it had added in the purchase of Bankers Trust Corp. two years earlier. In 2007, Deutsche Bank sold the building for $1.2 billion and agreed to lease the office space back from the new owners for 15 years.
The firm’s new Midtown address will be One Columbus Circle. That’s part of the complex at Time Warner Center, where a group including Stephen M. Ross’s Related Cos., the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapore’s state fund GIC bought 1.1 million square feet of office feet space for $1.3 billion in 2014. The 80-story, twin-tower project, which opened in 2004, was designed by architect David Childs, also known for his work on One World Trade Center.
Among alternative sites, Deutsche Bank had also considered becoming the anchor tenant for Larry Silverstein’s Two World Trade Center, according to reports last September.
Changing ‘Footprint’
The new location “is part of wider effort to right-size and invest in our commercial footprint in Frankfurt, London, and now, New York,” Patrick wrote. In a separate memo earlier, the bank said it’s also shutting an office in Houston while exiting oil and gas investment banking coverage.
Wall Street is now more concept than place. The exodus of major firms from the area around the New York Stock Exchange to Midtown began in the 1970s as computerized trading freed banks and brokerages from having to deliver paper securities and checks.
Among the first to move uptown was Morgan Stanley, which remains in Midtown near Times Square. Other early movers were Chemical Bank and Manufacturers Hanover. Space was in many cases cheaper and Midtown was a more convenient location for visiting corporate executives.
Major firms that still call the financial district home are American Express Co., which is headquartered at 200 Vesey St., and the U.S. arm of Canada’s RBC Capital Markets.
Moves around the city never cease. Midtown-based financial firms including KKR & Co., BlackRock Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. are taking space at new buildings at Hudson Yards on the far West side of Manhattan over a former rail yard.
--With assistance from Steve Dickson
To contact the reporters on this story: Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net, Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net, Rob Urban in New York at robprag@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub at dtaub@bloomberg.net, David Scheer, Dan Reichl
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