Google Buys Seven Floor Building To Tap London Talent(eu.techcrunch.com)
eu.techcrunch.com
Google Buys Seven Floor Building To Tap London Talent
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/09/28/google-buys-seven-floor-building-to-tap-london-talent/
6 comments
The title is misleading. They acquired a long-ish (10 year) lease. They did not buy the building.
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Word from some Googlers is this will be mostly used for sales rather than engineering.
I wonder if Google see a UK corporation tax cut on the way (or an Ireland tax rise.)
Tax doesn't make that much of a difference in these decisions. The Google business unit which generates big revenues (and pays most of Google's taxes in Europe) is the holding company in Ireland, which later pays an R&D/marketing/support/other fee to the local OpCo's where most engineers/sales reps are based, the so called 'Transfer Pricing'. That is why Google's regional offices are P&L break-even and hardly pay any corporate tax in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, etc. Refer to: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b42010431... and http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho... and http://www.businessweek.com/technology/google-tax-cut/google...
Aside from the ones announced six months ago?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12828434
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12828434
That's two streets away from our office (in the Moo.com complex). I hope they fill their new building with engineers.
They've previously said they want to have 750,000 - 1,000,000sq ft of office space in London, so this is likely just one in a long list of up coming building acquisitions.
Google clearly planning a huge (multi-1000) employee ramp up in the UK.