Walmart has enlisted the services of property outfit Cushman & Wakefield to find a London location where it can base the team that is to lead its European expansion.
It is believed that Walmart is focussing its search for London office space in the West End, traditionally a popular location for US companies to have their London offices.
The West End of London has a large number of flexible workspace solutions offered by a growing number of flex space providers that offer low-commitment turnkey alternatives to leased office space. See the profiles of the providers of Office Space on Flexible Contracts in the West End here.
David Cuthbert, a partner at property agent Hanover Green told the Independent: “West London has great rail, road and underground connections. The demand for office space has grown – better than in the past two to three years. The market is tightening and rents are rising.”
Already the US store owns UK supermarket giant ASDA. At one point Walmart also owned the German supermarket chain Wertkauf, though this was sold on the back of poor performance.
A Walmart spokesman said: “We are always looking for more opportunities all over the world.”
Currently, the chain is in talks to take over South African supermarket outfit Massmart, which has stores in 14 countries in Africa.
However, the takeover talks have been delayed over disagreements between Wal-Mart and employees’ unions.
After a hearing from South Africa’s Competition Tribunal, Walmart agreed that it would not lay off any workers for two years and would recognise existing union contracts as well as pay USD 14 million towards developing South African suppliers.
On the basis of revenue, Walmart was the world’s largest company in 2010 ahead of oil companies Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Based in Arkansas, the company has 8,500 stores in 15 countries around the world using 55 different names. Currently, it employs 2.1 million people.
Editor’s notes: As of June 2023, Walmart did not list a London office address on its corporate website.
Although it is understood that the company has been running some operations out of ASDA’s head offices in Leeds since 2014.