SINGAPORE — Barclays, the United Kingdom’s second-largest bank by assets, is terminating its lease at an office building in Tampines and will relocate its employees to Marina Bay Financial Centre to cut costs, said people familiar with the matter.
About 300 staff who work in back-office roles will be affected, a person said. Barclays declined to comment.
The move comes after the bank exited Changi Business Park earlier this year and relocated about 200 employees to the downtown office.
Mr Antony Jenkins, who replaced Mr Robert Diamond as the London-based bank’s Chief Executive Officer in 2012, is eliminating 12,000 jobs to curb costs and boost profitability.
Said Mr Donald Han, Managing Director of Chesterton Singapore, a real estate consultancy: “If you don’t have the size or scale, it’s better to be operating from one building.”
“The decision could be one of scale, of efficiency and of being able to consolidate under one roof despite current rentals being higher at Marina Bay Financial Centre.”
Monthly rents at Marina Bay Financial Centre are now S$11 to S$12 per sq ft, up from about S$10 to S$11 per sq ft when Barclays moved into the building in 2011, said Mr Han.
The bank might have received a big discount, considering the size of the space it leased, he said. That compares with as much as S$8 to S$9 per sq ft monthly rent for the 15,500 sq ft office space in Tampines Barclays is vacating, he added.
Barclays’ office at Marina Bay Financial Centre occupies about 290,000 sq ft. The bank, which has 3,500 full-time employees as of last October, has another 96,000 sq ft office at One Raffles Quay. BLOOMBERG
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