TikTok plans to expand London footprint with new office

TIKTOK is in talks to lease a new London office a block away from its current UK headquarters as the social media giant continues to expand rapidly despite political tensions between Britain and China.

The company, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, is negotiating a lease for the Verdant development at 150 Aldersgate Street near London’s Farringdon district, people with knowledge of the talks said. The video-sharing platform wants to rent the entire 11-story, 134,000-square-foot (12,500-square-meter) development, the people said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment.

Deteriorating relations between the UK and China have affected TikTok’s expansion plans in Britain. The company suspended talks to build a global headquarters in the UK after the government limited the use of Huawei Technologies products in the country’s 5G infrastructure, the Sunday Times reported in July 2020.

The company has instead expanded rapidly in Dublin while renting a more modest UK headquarters at the Kaleidoscope building in Farringdon. Mapletree, the Singaporean owner of the Dublin building, is now considering a sale of the property, React News reported. BLOOMBERG