Warner Bros. Discovery, the US media giant, has appointed JLL to market for sublease around 200,000 square feet of offices that it occupies at two headquarters buildings, Warner House or 98 Theobalds Road and 160 Old Street in London, CoStar News can reveal.
The decision comes after WarnerMedia and Discovery completed a merger last year with Warner Bros. Discovery trading on the Nasdaq.
Warner Bros. Discovery includes Discovery Channel, Warner Bros Entertainment, CNN, HBO, Cartoon Network; streaming services Discovery+ and HBO Max; and franchises like Batman and Harry Potter.
Welput owns the 134,000-square-foot offices at 98 Theobalds Road in Bloomsbury, which Warner Bros. Discovery occupies in its entirety on a lease until 2034. It bought the company's long-term Midtown home in 2013.
The building was fully refitted in 2018 and is occupied by Warner Bros. Discovery across nine floors including two screening rooms and onsite catering facilities/cafeteria. JLL will sublet all of the building.
Warner Bros. Discovery has also appointed JLL to sublet around 58,000 square feet at 160 Old Street, with the business remaining in around 58,000 square feet. The UK based operation of Turner, the global entertainment, sports and news subsidiary of the then-Time Warner signed for the building with GPE for the 160,000-square-foot building in Old Street in December 2017. JPMorgan Asset Management bought it from GPE in October 2021 for £181.5 million.
A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesman confirmed its decision to sublet the space and said it would be retaining a major presence at its offices at Building 2 at Chiswick Park in west London. It occupies around 100,000 square feet at the building at China Investment Corporation's business campus.
The decision comes as Gerald Eve reports marketed sublet space is set to be a constant feature over 2023 as occupiers seek efficiencies to mitigate rising costs.
It says increased business rate liabilities, utilities and labour costs, combined with the recession hit to business revenues, are of major concern.
It says in recent months, three major corporates — Barclays, Facebook and Nationwide — have put over a million square feet back on the market between them, and this could become more commonplace as occupancy needs are reassessed.
UK building society Nationwide is marketing the circa 90,000 square feet that it leases at its main London office, the Post Building.
Global banks have been scaling back their real estate occupation in recent years, with Barclays focused on creating a "campus" model of office in areas such as Glasgow and the North West of England.
There has also been a general global office scaleback by US tech giants, with Meta dropping plans for major offices in the US, Dublin and London, and Google, Dell and Microsoft all confirming they will scale back global office space but not saying what they plan to do in London.
But the story is complex and other global tech companies such as TikTok have been expanding recently in the capital while other sectors such as the legal sector and challenger banks have been busily relocating to prime offices.
JLL figures released found that take-up for the central London office market hit around 10 million square feet last year, 23% ahead of 2021 and in line with the 10-year average.
The research also highlighted that around 3.1 million square feet of offices is under offer across central London.