When you fall on hard times , you sometimes have to downsize . So it is with BP , which is in talks to sell its London headquarters because of massive financial loss . Multinational oil companionship : They ’re just like us .
The company ’s situation is located in what theWall Street Journal callsthe “ tony Mayfair section ” of London and the sales event is being finalize for roughly $ 328 million . That ’ll be a nice godsend for the company that saw record multibillion - dollar mark loss to start the twelvemonth . It ’s also nearly quadruple the amount of money BP earned last quarter after crude recovered somewhat .
Hong Kong - base investiture caller Lifestyle International Holdings is the report buyer for the space thatincludesa beautiful glass - topped atrium and sweeping staircases cut out over it . It ’s pretty sweet , so congrats to Lifestyle International Holdings on its good penchant .
A security guard at the entrance to BP’s London headquartersPhoto: Christopher Furlong (Getty Images)
The fact that BP is selling authority reflects the way the pandemic is affecting us all and the specific dire straits of crude oil companies . mold in billet is simply not something most companies will be doing for a prospicient clip . BP has reportedly been looking to deal its role for month , and honestly hang onto a $ 328 million space to house computers , files , pens , and whatnot seems whacky . Now , it seems BP CEO Bernard Looney could simply bribe a few storage lockers , stash stuff there , and call it a day until citizenry can safely go back to work .
The intimately closed sale , first report by theFinancial Times , also reflects how petroleum company are particularly poorly positioned going forward . BP bought the part in 2001 , shortly after it closed on thelargest industrial merger in historywhen it buy American fossil oil major Amoco in 1998 for $ 48.2 billion . But the good times have slowly been winding down over the past decade , and they come to a screeching check this twelvemonth as the pandemic cratered petroleum demand .
Oil companies have been shin to figure out how to deal ever since . The selection to particular date have involveddefaulting on loans , fret about a immature recovery , laying off workers whilepaying out shareholder , andmaking spoiled tweet . Honestly , sell a trick - out embodied office seems like a near way to corrupt some respiration way and not lay off worker … except that BP is doing that , too . Looney foretell in June that he gestate tolay off 10,000 mostly office workers,“most by the end of this yr . ”
That ’s a lot of empty desk , so it makes mother wit that BP would downsize its office blank space . It ’s nevertheless surprising its corporate central office is among the first to go . But in a mark of how things work , the Wall Street Journal reports the company also has plans to rent back at least some of the office “ where Chief Executive Bernard Looney and the eternal rest of the BP leaders squad is based . ” No word on what will happen to workers elsewhere if the house decides to sell off other substantial estate of the realm the CEO does n’t practice .
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