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Lloyd’s of London has reached an agreement with Chinese investor Ping An to remain in its famous City of London headquarters until at least 2035 — and now the pair must work to make a striking but energy-inefficient building greener.
Lloyd’s, a collection of insurance syndicates whose brokers source insurance on everything from art and ships to property, occupies a 250K SF building designed by Richard Rogers. The building's famous “inside-out” format features plant and mechanical features like lifts and heating ducts on the outside of the building.
Lloyd’s, which has a lease on the building to 2026, had been looking at alternative options after moving to the building in 1986. While Rogers’ design is innovative, the upkeep of the building is expensive and energy-inefficient, with an energy performance certificate rating of E on a scale in which A+ is the highest and G is the lowest.
Changing work patterns also made Lloyd’s question whether it needed as much space: For more than 300 years, deals had been made face-to-face between insurance brokers and providers.
Lloyd’s has now agreed to extend its lease to at least 2035, The Financial Times reported, with the possibility to extend that to 2040. The two sides also agreed to invest in the building to make it more energy-efficient, the FT said, without giving a figure for the amount of investment needed or the EPC rating being targeted.
Ping An bought the building for £260M in 2013.
Lloyd’s moving would have had the potential to reshape the office market of the City of London. Such a large proportion of the insurance business in London is underwritten through Lloyd’s that big insurance brokers and corporate underwriters base their offices as close to Lloyd’s as possible.
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