3M, the American science-based technology group, has gone under offer to take around 50,000 square feet of offices in Reading in a move that will see another major consolidation of a tech giant's footprint in the South East.
CoStar News understands that 3M is set to take all of the E2 building at the Winnersh Triangle business park from Frasers Property UK.
Colliers is advising 3M while CBRE and Hollis Hockley advise Frasers at Winnersh Triangle.
The letting would see 3M decamp from the circa 182,000-square-foot campus at the 3M Centre on Cain Road in Bracknell.
Winnersh Triangle is owned and managed by Frasers Property UK. The park is a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use asset with Grade A offices for corporate headquarters and flexible suites for start-ups, alongside hybrid buildings and data centres. Tenants are from the technology, data and science sectors.
3M joins American tech powerhouses Oracle and Microsoft in recently scaling back occupancy of offices in the Thames Valley, their favoured location during the dotcom boom. The newer generation of tech giants such as Apple, Meta, Amazon and Google have tended to choose central London for campuses, while the likes of Microsoft and Oracle have consolidated as they have focused on hybrid working.
CoStar News revealed at the end of last year that Microsoft had gone under offer to consolidate all operations into an 80,000-square-foot headquarters in the Here building at Thames Valley Park. In 2020 the group had centralised its occupation into Buildings 1, 2 and 3, which provide 241,000 square feet of offices. Buildings 1, 2 and 3 were bought by The Valesco Group, the European real estate investment manager, and AIP Asset Management, the Seoul-headquartered asset manager, for around £100 million in 2018.
Microsoft sold the vacated Buildings 4 and 5 to Baumont Real Estate, which alongside V7 has redeveloped them as the 146,000-square-foot Here and Now campus. The Now building is also majority-leased.
CoStar News revealed in February that Oracle, the computer giant founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison, has launched a search for new offices in Reading in a move that is expected to unlock the sale of its 24-acre campus in the Berkshire town.
Market sources said the group has begun to view options for a 40,000 to 60,000-square-foot requirement in either out-of-town or the town centre of Reading, about 40 miles west of London.