Canary Wharf timeline: from the Thatcher years to Qatari control
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Version 0 of 1. Canary Wharf is to be bought by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Canadian investor Brookfield Properties for £2.6bn after Songbird, the owner of the Docklands estate, admitted defeat. Canary Wharf takes its name from the quay where fruit and veg from the Mediterranean and Canary islands was once unloaded. The disused Docklands site, formed by a loop in the Thames, was turned into a second financial district to rival the City of London after 1987. Today, Canary Wharf’s cluster of skyscrapers in east London is home to some of the world’s biggest banks, such as Citigroup and HSBC. 1987 Canary Wharf is the creation of Canadian property tycoon Paul Reichmann, but the idea for an office complex in the Isle of Dogs came from American bankers Michael von Clemm and G Ware Travelstead. The Docklands Development Corporation was set up by Margaret Thatcher’s environment secretary Michael Heseltine in 1981 to breathe new life into London’s old port, and Travelstead got its backing. But he didn’t have the funding and eventually knocked on the door of Reichmann’s company, Olympia & York, in 1987. Reichmann did his own research among London’s financial community. He told the National Post newspaper: I had 29 meetings with business leaders in London to see if such a project made sense. I did not ask them if they would move to Canary Wharf. The answer would have been no. My main question was: are you happy with your operating premises or do you see the need to do something dramatic? What I detected was the great majority were very unhappy with their premises, but their attitude was that they had no choice. The Canadian tycoon befriended Thatcher, who agreed to provide generous tax breaks. Reichmann, who died in 2013, had already delivered a similar project in Manhattan. 1988 Construction began. 1990 The 244m Canary Wharf skyscraper at One Canada Square, topped by a pyramid, was the first tower to rise out of the docks in 1990. It was Britain’s tallest building for two decades until it was overtaken by the Shard in 2010 (architecture critics thought it was too tall and Thatcher and Prince Charles didn’t like it either). 1991 The first tenants moved to Canary Wharf in 1991. The banks Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse First Boston, HSBC and Citigroup, and the Financial Services Authority all moved to the Docklands in subsequent years. Barclays was the last clearing bank to leave Lombard Street in the City for Canary Wharf, in 2005. Much of Fleet Street also decamped east, including the Telegraph, the Mirror and the Independent, although only the Mirror remains. 1992 But it wasn’t all plain sailing. In 1992, following a property crash, Olympia & York filed for bankruptcy and Canary Wharf was placed in administration. 1995 Undaunted, three years later Reichmann pulled together a consortium of wealthy investors (including Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and the American media mogul Larry Tisch) to buy Canary Wharf back from the banks for £800m. 1999 As the property market recovered and more firms moved to the Docklands, the business floated on the London stock market. 2004 Reichmann finally lost control of Canary Wharf during a fierce 11-month takeover battle, ending his 20-year involvement with the project. Canary Wharf Group was acquired by Songbird Estates, a consortium led by US investment bank Morgan Stanley. 2009 The Qatari Investment Authority became a major Songbird shareholder, after coming to the company’s rescue with China’s sovereign wealth fund in 2009, when Songbird almost collapsed under the weight of its debts. 2014 Canary Wharf is now spreading east, the first expansion of the estate since the 2008 financial crisis. There are plans for 30 buildings at Wood Wharf, including a 57-storey cylindrical residential skyscraper facing the waters of South Dock, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architects behind Tate Modern and the Bird’s Nest in Beijing. The eastern extension is set to almost double the number of people working and living in the area within the next 10 years. It will get a big boost from Crossrail, the £16bn railway running east-west across London that is due to open in 2018. |