Bank giant HQ on the move to two new city sites

May 16 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

Bank giant HQ on the move to two new city sites

BANKING giant HSBC is vacating its long-established Liverpool city centre headquarters, on Dale Street, and moving its retail and commercial departments to two new separate locations.

The bank has spent “several million pounds” acquiring a building in nearby Lord Street, close to the Liverpool One retail development, which will become its retail banking centre.

HSBC has also instructed commercial property agents at CB Richard Ellis to find 10,000 sq ft of Grade A space in the city’s central business district to house its corporate and commercial teams.

Its current home on the corner of Dale Street and Castle Street, with its distinctive dark glass frontage, has been put up for sale by owner Prudential. The five-storey, 17,000 sq ft building is being marketed by agents at Mason Owen with a price tag of more than £3m.

A spokeswoman for HSBC told the Daily Post: “We have just secured the site in Lord Street and that will become our flagship branch in Liverpool.” Chris Hennessey, of CB Richard Ellis, added that the office space currently used by the bank’s commercial teams was no longer suitable.

“The space is no longer in keeping with the requirements of a company like HSBC and they have instructed us to find 10,000 sq ft of quality space in the prime office core,” he said.

Top of the list is likely to be Rumford Investments’ 20 Chapel Street building, which already houses a number of blue-chip financial services companies.

High-quality refurbished space is also available at Downing’s Capital building and Bruntwood’s Plaza, both in Old Hall Street.

The bank has been resident in Dale Street for several years, as both HSBC and the Midland, and in 2004 it opened a new corporate banking centre in the building which targeted businesses with a £25m plus turnover.

HSBC is the second major bank to relocate its main retail operation to Lord Street.

Barclays closed all of its city centre branches last year and moved its staff there. Last week, HSBC executives said that a “resilient” performance had helped lift first-quarter profits, despite an extra £3bn in credit crunch losses.

tonymcdonough