Natixis has signed for 88,449 square feet at Thames Court, 1 Queenhithe, EC4, in one of the largest City of London office lettings of the year.
The French corporate and investment bank has taken the ground, first and fourth floors of the riverside building on a lease dated 18 June.
Natixis is part of Groupe BPCE and has a London presence at 25 Dowgate Hill, where it operates across capital markets, financing and advisory.
The landlord, Eastmed, is linked to a Greek shipping-backed investment group with real estate holdings including offices in central London.
The 139,000-square-foot Thames Court was the home of Dutch bank Rabobank. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, it is located between Cannon Street Station, Mansion House and Blackfriars Station.
The transaction removes a large proportion of the remaining space at Thames Court, leaving approximately 34,400 square feet available.
Mark Stansfield, senior director of market analytics at CoStar said: “The Natixis deal is the third-largest letting in the City of London this year and the largest in an existing building, given the bumper 200,000 square-foot plus deals to insurer Lockton and law firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer were pre-lets. Pre-lets and renewals will likely be the main avenue for big deals moving forwards. The Natixis letting reduced the number of buildings in the City Core that are able to satisfy an immediate contiguous requirement of 80,000 square feet or more to five , with a further 10 such buildings under construction or under renovation.”
Squarebrook advised Natixis. Savills and Newmark acted for Eastmed.