Best London offices

Hey! I was wondering which bank in London has the best office? (view, decoration, placement, perks for employees)

 
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JP Morgan occupies Lehman's old digs on Bank Street in Canary Wharf - heard there used to be an excellent canteen on the seventh floor featuring its own sushi bar, unsure if it's still there.

Goldman's building a huge new "groundscraper" in Farringdon - is gonna feature a huge glass roof that'll allegedly "bathe" the trading floor in natural light. Apparently it'll also have a bunch of funky staircases to encourage walking vs the elevators. There's also free tampons available for women in their loos.

Credit Suisse recently refurbished their fixed income trading floor (for the three people still there) - looks very chic and futuristic from what I've seen. CS also has a good swimming pool (you'll see the IBD juniors sleeping on the sun loungers when you come in each morning) and squash courts.

UBS has also got a fairly new office and, like Goldman, has dubbed it a "groundscraper" (is only twelve stories tall) - is apparently quite an edgy design on the inside with "hot-desking" and the like designed to appeal to "millennial" bankers.

One Bank Street is Soc Gen's new London office, right on the same street as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. Haven't heard any details, but, going by how UBS and Goldman have gone about their moves, will probably feature the same formula of "natural light + open spaces + indoor greenery".

Morgan Stanley's research team has a yoga room and the building as a whole recently got a newly refurbished gym.

Rothschild (in the City) has a lot of the bank's / family's artwork displayed for all to see (whereas other banks tend to keep their premier art on C-suit floors / in client meeting rooms). Foyer is very nice, upstairs is decent in comparison to most banks but of course not as nice as the downstairs would lead you to believe.

Will add any other perks I can think of when they come to mind...

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde
 

HSBC’s entrance is quite cool, and views from their office too

Citi’s building still has 2 floor for Lehman Brothers as of 2019 which is quite of a meme

BAML’s rooftop with views onto St Pauls is quite nice as well as their sunlight well in the middle of the building bringing some day light that is much needed for the IBD guys.

 

BofA may have a nice location and upstairs balcony but the offices themselves are shit. Tiny cubicles (even for many Directors) with 80s/90s style decor.

 

Rothschild is a great European option. Also, Lazard is strong in the space (they do more deals abroad than in the US). Outside of the US, the BBs seem to do very well with leveraging their global infrastructure/ relationships/ and capital capabilities.

Other EBs with less of a Euro-presence like EVR, Moelis, and PWP have showed interest in expanding in order to compete at a higher level globally (as they mostly dominate their respective spaces in the US).

 

Having done some due diligence on each of the main banks a few years back, JPMorgan's offices seemed the best, Goldman Sachs International (Fleet Street) and UBS just behind. BofAML and Credit Suisse were probably the worst, I remember their tables were MDF and not real wood. Talking about the client floors/meeting rooms here.

Oh and Goldmans had some top notch cookies, so that may have influenced my rankings.

"A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers." - Plato
 

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