London - JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to purchase an office
building under construction in Dublin that can accommodate more than 1,000
workers as it expands in Ireland. The price wasn’t disclosed.
The bank’s Irish unit has bought the 200 Capital Dock
building from real-estate firm Kennedy Wilson, Toronto-based Fairfax Financial
Holdings Ltd. and Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency, Kennedy Wilson
said in a statement on Monday.
The building, which measures about 130,000 square feet
(12,000 square meters), is due to be completed in the third quarter of 2018. “Given
the momentum of our local businesses, this new building gives us room to grow
and some flexibility within the European Union,” Carin Bryans, senior country
officer for JPMorgan in Ireland, said in the statement. “Dublin has the vibrant
business and technology communities that suit a global firm like ours.”
The US bank is expanding its custody business in Ireland and
plans to hire a significant number of new workers as part of that growth.
BlackRock Inc. transferred custody services related to about $1.3 trillion of
client assets earlier this year from State Street Corp. to the bank, which
currently employs about 500 people in custody and fund services in the Irish
capital.
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Rising searches for Dublin office space, some of it from
occupiers moving workers after the Brexit vote, has led to increased demand
from buyers for office space under construction, CBRE Group Inc. said in a
report this month. About 7 percent of office space in the Irish capital was
vacant at the end of the first quarter, compared with 7.7 percent a year
earlier, according to data compiled by the broker.
The money raised from the sale of 200 Capital Dock, together
with a 125-million euro ($136.8 million) loan advanced by Deutsche Bank AG,
will fund the majority of the remaining cost of developing the wider Capital
Dock project, which will also include apartments, according to Kennedy Wilson.
Bloomberg News earlier reported the bank’s plan to buy the building.