This report seeks to better understand London’s current HQ economy, its impact on London, how it has developed to date, the risks that it faces, and how policy should respond to these. However, Brexit has brought into question London’s position as a centre for European HQs: the location of multinationals’ offices has featured heavily in Brexit debates, and in the press every headquarters, move becomes “about” Brexit. London has also attracted new corporate temples as Bloomberg, Facebook and Google have made very large investments in new central London offices. Amazon’s HQ2 public auction and Apple’s new HQ in Silicon Valley have rekindled debate about using public budgets to attract headquarters: some in US cities see them as a lifeline, others as a mixed blessing.Ĥ have expanded their regional HQs in Shanghai this year, and Alibaba is now transitioning to a two HQ model, in Hangzhou and Beijing. As technology multinationals have grown tremendously in size and value, their monumental headquarter investments are attracting attention. Nonetheless, the decisions of large businesses play a major role in shaping cities, and the public debate over how headquarters should relate to their cities has also intensified. This is partly because headquarter (HQ) location choice is usually a secretive process,ġ and partly due to the diverse range of functions that can comprise “HQ activities”.

In recent years, London has played an increasingly important role in hosting the headquarters of multinational corporations (MNCs) – yet this aspect of London’s commercial activity has been somewhat understudied in comparison with its role as a centre for global tech, finance and creative industries.

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