WPP’s Bankside office scheme gets green light

WPP has won planning approval for a revamp of Rose Court by Southwark Bridge, SE1. The property is owned by M&G following a circa £190m sale and leaseback deal with WPP in April 2017. The UK advertising and PR company bought the building from Singapore-listed property group Ho Bee Land in February 2017 for £94.5m through a Guernsey property unit trust. Designed by BDG architecture + design, which is owned by WPP, the revamp will see the 157,144 sq ft office building given a new façade and rooftop terrace, as well as a café, canteen, restaurant event space and business lounge. The building sits astride the 16th century remains of the Rose Playhouse, which were uncovered in 1989. WPP is also to lease the Financial Times’ building opposite from M&G Real Estate once the FT relocates to its new offices at Bracken House, EC4, this year. M&G acquired the building in November last year for around £115m, preletting its 219,998 sq ft of offices to WPP for around £65 per sq ft, according to Radius Data Exchange. The new office locations put WPP, which also occupies Sea Containers House, SE1, closer to competitor Omnicom’s offices in Bankside 2 and Bankside 3, SE1, which have been owned by Deutsche Asset Management since it acquired the buildings for £310m in 2017 from M&G Real Estate. WPP lost more than a third of its market value in 2018 owing to concerns about traditional advertising companies’ competitiveness against the likes of Google and the departure of Sir Martin Sorrell. In its latest full-year results reported at the beginning of March, WPP, which has offices in 112 countries, said it expected 2019 to be challenging due to headwinds from client losses last year, but planned to address its issues in North America this year as part of a three-year turnaround plan to make the company more client-centric. To send feedback, e-mail louise.dransfield@egi.co.uk or tweet @DransfieldL or @estatesgazette