St James's Place agrees deal for new Knightsbridge office

The working from home trend may be popular, but companies still want London offices, wealth manager St James’s Place showed as it signed for a new base.

The FTSE 100 firm has agreed to take nearly 19,000 square feet of space at 116 Brompton Road, a recently refurbished property. A hedge fund, which was not named, is also taking 8267 square feet at APML Estate’s building.

Around 150 St James’s Place staff will relocate to the new Knightsbridge site later this year from one of the firm’s five existing London offices which it is due to exit.

A company spokesman said: “We are a face-to-face wealth management company and while our staff and partner practices have embraced remote working, the ability to have access to office space and to meet with clients in person remains core to our business.”

There have been concerns in the property industry about how office demand will look after some businesses saw how well staff adapted to working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown.