BT sells iconic London HQ

(Image credit: BT) (Image credit: BT)

BT has agreed the sale of its central London headquarters to a private equity firm as it continues its restructuring programme.

Orion Capital Managers will acquire BT Centre for almost £210 million and has agreed to lease the 300,000 square foot office building for a period of 30 months while the company moves to a new headquarters in the capital.

A new site has yet to be confirmed, but BT has said details will be made available shortly.

BT HQ

The restructuring programme was announced by former CEO Gavin Patterson last year and will see 13,000 jobs cut, mainly in back office and middle management roles, and a move to base its operations at 30 sites around the UK.

It is hoped the changes will save £1.3 billion, allow the more streamlined company to react more rapidly to market trends, and means it can get closer to customers. There will be fewer leadership roles with greater responsibilities and more jobs will be created in engineering and customer service.

BT plans to invest up to £3.7 billion a year in its infrastructure as Openreach continues with the rollout of fibre to the premise (FTTP) EE presses ahead with its 5G deployment. BT believes it can be a leader in the field of converged networks that integrate fixed, mobile and wireless connectivity to deliver new experiences for businesses and consumers.

Steve McCaskill is TechRadar Pro's resident mobile industry expert, covering all aspects of the UK and global news, from operators to service providers and everything in between. He is a former editor of Silicon UK and journalist with over a decade's experience in the technology industry, writing about technology, in particular, telecoms, mobile and sports tech, sports, video games and media.