With the demise of Lehman Brothers in 2008, figures revealed that Canary Wharf was suffering, with a plummet in value by ?1.8 billion. This report generated concerns that the area could revisit the lows of 1990s experienced during the last recession, when developer Olympia & York went into administration.
However, businesses such as Barclays, HSBC and Citigroup residing at Canary Wharf have helped to alleviate fears and encouraged post-recession recovery.
The company Songbird which owns 69.3 per cent of the Canary Wharf Group managed to raise ?1.03 billion from investors in 2009. This is the largest ever amount raised by a UK property company and this month Songbird have revealed a profit of ?335 million for 2009, before tax.
Chairman of Songbird, David Pritchard told The Daily Telegraph: ?There has been a lot of hype about a great exodus to Zurich or somewhere, but when you look at what is actually happening, it’s very small numbers of people, who tend to be hedge funds that occupy the West End rather than our sort of premises. We have got 90,000 people working on the estate and you simply can’t move numbers on that scale with any flexibility.?
Mr Pritchard stressed the strong ability of Canary Wharf to attract new businesses and disagreed with the proposal that businesses could begin to desert London offices.
Whilst the City is constructing less than 3 million square feet of new unit space, Canary Wharf has development plans for 5.5 million square feet and ?1 billion to spend on it.
