Lazard In Talks for London HQ on Site That Beatles Made Famous
Lazard In Talks for London HQ on Site That Beatles Made Famous
(Bloomberg) -- Lazard Ltd. is in negotiations to leave its London Mayfair headquarters in favor of new premises on the site that long housed the Beatles’ main record label.
The financial advisory and asset management firm is in talks with Invesco Real Estate to lease 20 Manchester Square, formerly the site of EMI House, people with knowledge of the discussions said. The proposed deal would see Invesco refurbish and extend the 70,000 square-foot (6,500 square meters) building in Marylebone, the people said, asking not to be identified as the plan is private. The talks are ongoing and there’s no certainty the deal will complete.
Representatives for Lazard and Invesco declined to comment.
A wave of residential conversions and muted development activity have left London’s priciest office neighborhoods around Mayfair and St James’s with few vacancies. That’s forced long-term corporate residents like Lazard, which has been weighing options for new offices since 2017, to look further afield. Apollo Global Management Inc. is in talks to move its existing London office from Mayfair to the city’s Soho area, the Evening Standard reported Thursday.
The Beatles’ first studio album ‘Please Please Me’ in 1963 features a picture of the band on the stairwell of EMI House, which was knocked down in 1999 to make way for the existing building. A later photograph of the band at EMI House, originally intended for the cover of a proposed album entitled ‘Get Back,’ featured on a compilation of the band’s hits released in 1973.
The building occupies the corner of an 18th century garden square, next to Hertford House, home to the Wallace Collection of art. It’s currently occupied by Boston Consulting Group Inc., which plans to move to new premises nearby.
Plans to refurbish and extend the building were approved by Westminster City Council in April.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Sidders in London at jsidders@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Robinson at ssmith118@bloomberg.net, Chris Bourke, Patrick Henry
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