US financial services giant BNY has agreed to buy its new Irish headquarters in Dublin’s south docklands from its landlord, developer Pat Crean’s Marlet Property Group.
Property industry sources estimate the deal for the Shipping Office development on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, comprising 16,443sq m (177,000 sq ft) of grade-A office space, amounts to between €140 million and €165 million.
BNY’s chief financial officer, Irishman Dermot McDonogh, disclosed the deal in an interview with The Irish Times, saying it was a clear sign of the company’s commitment to Ireland. However, he declined to comment on price.
Crean and Marlet could not be reached for comment.
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BNY currently employs more than 1,000 staff in the Republic. Excluding floor space in the building that is already let to Danske Bank, BNY will have capacity to accommodate more than 1,300 employees once the deal goes through. It currently employs more than 1,000 workers in the State.
The world’s largest custodian bank – which manages the safekeeping of tens of trillions of dollars of assets held in investment funds and oversees the operational and administrative work around trillions more – initially signed a lease two years ago to take on four of the seven floors of office space.
BNY took on the additional space earlier this year. It is understood that the company entered discussions on buying the entire building after it approached the landlord about taking on even more of the available office accommodation.
Prior to the move to the Shipping Building, BNY operated from two offices in Dublin. BNY’s country head in Ireland is Paul Kilcullen, who joined the company from Citigroup six years ago.
The acquisition follows decisions last year by the company to close regional locations in Wexford, affecting 300 jobs, and Cork, which had 200 employees at the time of the announcement. The Cork wind-down is continuing into next year.
While a number of staff in both locations are understood to have taken up – or plan to accept – offers to transfer to BNY in Dublin, others have left the company. A company spokesman declined to comment on how many of the original staff in Wexford and Cork will ultimately end up working from the Dublin base.
McDonogh said the closures were a result of New York-based BNY, which traces its roots back to 1784, considering its global footprint in recent years.
“These are tough decisions to make. And at an individual level, it can be difficult,” he said. “But scale matters and we want to be where our clients are. So, you weigh up the pros and cons, and you make the right decision for the firm, for the employees, and for clients overall.”
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese group ByteDance, had previously been in talks in early 2022 to lease the Shipping Office from Marlet, but the social-media group pulled out of the deal that August before contracts were signed, after it made the first of a series of job-cut announcements.
TikTok opened an office in Dublin in 2020 with 20 employees and had a peak Irish headcount of about 3,000. The Irish operation had about 2,000 staff in July when it went about cutting more than a net 300 further positions.
