Amazon To Sublease UK Warehouse Space Amid Flagging Sales
Amazon is planning to sublease part of its UK warehouse portfolio as it pulls back on space in the wake of declining e-commerce sales.
The online retail giant will sublease some space for which it has signed leases but not yet moved in, The Telegraph reported. It is not planning to sublease space it already occupies, the newspaper said.
A site in Bracknell, to the west of London, which was being fitted out last year, is one of the first properties that could be subleased.
The move comes after Amazon said it was closing three of its older facilities across the UK at the same time it is opening two new warehouses, which would lead to a net increase in space.
The firm had 41M SF as of the end of 2020, data from Savills showed. 2020 was a high watermark for Amazon expansion, seeing the company lease 14M SF to meet rising demand for online delivery created by the pandemic.
That demand has waned, however, and the company fell to its worst annual loss on record in 2022.
On the investment side, data from MSCI showed UK industrial values fell by 26% in the second half of 2022, with investment yields rising 120 basis points.
