Britain's largest ever property deal has seen HSBC complete the sale of their headquarters at 8 Canada Square, Canary Wharf for a whopping £1.09 billion to Spanish property firm Metrovacesa.
HSBC will pay £870 million over the period to Metrovacesa in return for 20 years lease of the tower and have options for a further five years. 8 Canada Square is the joint second tallest building in the UK at 199.5 metres and has enough space to accommodate 5000 staff.
It's practically a self contained city with a medical centre, shops, a gym taking up an entire floor and the largest staff canteen in Europe.
HSBC boss, David Hodgkinson, thinks it "is a good opportunity for HSBC to manage its property assets effectively". £1.09 billion makes it worth 3,806,000 bog-standard garden sheds from Argos, 5948 average houses or half a billion pints of beer. Skyscraper versus half a billion pints of beer? That's a difficult one for Londonist to choose.
By James Newman
