Meta closes another base in London: The Facebook parent company is downsizing its largest international outpost

EXCLUSIVE: Facebook parent company Meta is closing its Frank Gehry-designed London headquarters, Deadline has learned. It will further reduce the number of offices in London, where the tech giant has its largest staff presence outside the US.

The news that Meta is closing its large headquarters at One Rathbone Square in the city’s upscale Fitzrovia district comes shortly after the company paid 149 million pounds ($189 million) to secure a long-term lease for another office near Regent’s Park. London to extend.

Meta moved to Rathbone Square in 2017. It housed marketing and sales teams as well as engineers and developers. It was also the location of a dedicated startup incubator space.

Following the exit from Rathbone Square, Meta’s UK presence will focus on two existing locations: on Brock Street, near Euston, and near Kings Cross.

Meta informed employees of the change in December. It confirmed the closure of the office until the deadline. “We look forward to consolidating our Rathbone Square teams across our newly opened King’s Cross campus and our newly expanded Brock Street office,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

By 2023, Meta experienced dramatic staff reductions. The company said there would be no reduction in its UK workforce as a result of the closure of its Rathbone Square office, as the company shrinks its property footprint in the UK following cuts and a move to hybrid working. .

Last year Meta opened a new campus in Dublin, its official international headquarters, and employs around 2,000 people in Ireland. The latest filings from 2022 showed that Meta had 7,000 employees in the UK, but that was before deep cuts which have reportedly dropped the total to below 5,000.

The aforementioned King’s Cross campus was opened in March 2022 after a three-year construction period by King Charles and Queen Camilla (then Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall).

Meta’s lease for the Rathbone Square office was believed to be for a period of fifteen years. It does not say whether property owners should be compensated for their move.

Rathbone Square was sold to Deka Immobilien for £375m in February 2017 in a deal between two of the German company’s property funds. Deka told Deadline that she did not receive any payments from Meta to terminate the lease. It declined to comment on whether Meta would vacate its offices, but said it was confident it could quickly re-let the property if needed. As the move will take place in the coming months, the situation regarding the costs incurred by Meta remains unclear.

Last September, London Land, which owned office space near London’s Regent’s Park that was being renovated for Meta, said the Facebook and Instagram parent company would pay £149m to end its lease on the property. The meta employees haven’t even moved into the offices yet.