Perella Weinberg to leave Mayfair amid finance sector leasing flurry

Investment bank Perella Weinberg is to leave its Mayfair headquarters in favour of a newly developed office in Fitzrovia, as a recent flurry of leasing activity among the West End’s financial occupiers continues apace. The firm’s London bankers will move to Derwent’s new office scheme at 80 Charlotte Street, W1, after exchanging on a 12-year lease for roughly 30,000 sq ft of space at the site. The move represents a significant increase in floor space at Perella’s London headquarters, driven by a pandemic-induced dealmaking surge and subsequent hiring spree in recent years. Last year the boutique investment bank made a record turnover of $801.7m (£630m) across the group, up 54% year-on-year. It will leave its existing premises at Fitzroy House in Mayfair, W1, later this year, where it has occupied 21,000 sq ft since 2006. Perella Weinberg will pay about £85 per sq ft for the new base, which is one of just a handful of prime office schemes with that much space currently available in the West End submarket. Separately, US investment house Marlin Equity Partners has signed a lease to move to One Newman Street, W1, which is Great Portland Estates’ newly developed office building near Oxford Circus. The private equity firm will make the site its European headquarters. Marlin is currently based on the fourth floor at the Verde building in Victoria, a scheme which was developed by Tishman Speyer before being sold to Deka in 2018 for £455m. However, it has agreed a 10-year lease to move to the fourth floor of GPE’s new building. It will move into the 13,778 sq ft of office space later this year. GPE announced the deal via a regulatory announcement earlier this month, but did not name the tenant. Financiers drive West End office leasing glut The deals are the latest in a trend of private equity and investment banking occupiers driving the West End leasing market. Research from BNP Paribas Real Estate showed that the sector accounted for more than a quarter of take-up in the area in the first quarter of this year. Finance occupiers were responsible for 178,400 sq ft of completed office deals in the opening months of the year across the entire West End, with the next biggest industry grouping for take-up – media and tech – coming in at 91,300 sq ft. However, where the Perella Weinberg and Marlin deals differ is in location: most of their peers who have signed leases recently have preferred Mayfair and St James’s. Warburg Pincus, a US private equity giant, recently took 24,000 sq ft at Tristan Capital’s Stirling Square, SW1, while Blackstone has agreed to take 40,000 sq ft at Berkeley Square House, W1, just opposite its existing headquarters on the square. See also:  Mayfair financiers drive office leasing glut in West End To send feedback, e-mail alex.daniel@eg.co.uk or tweet @alexmdaniel or @EGPropertyNews To view more lettings in Fitzrovia, go to Radius >> Discover which agents are doing the most office deals in the West End with EG’s On-Demand Rankings >> Photo: Alex Segre/REX/Shutterstock