Nedbank has cut the amount of office space it utilises across South Africa and the rest of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region by more than half since 2016 as it moves to ‘consolidate’ and ‘standardise’ its own buildings.
In all, its corporate real estate floor space has reduced from 381 000m² in 2016 to just 180 000m² at the end of June.
Due to the group’s space reductions across its offices and – importantly – branches, it incurred the same total cost of occupancy in the first six months of this year as it did in the same period five years ago. This is despite rental and administrative price increases as well as depreciation.
In the first half, its so-called ‘accommodation’ expenses totalled R1.095 billion. In the first half of 2019, this was R1.091 billion. There was a 3% decrease from 2023. (Included in this figure are load-shedding-related expenses, which improved over the past year. Last year, this was R62 million. This year, it decreased to R27 million.)
It has reduced 52% of its office space, or 201 000m², in the last seven-and-a-half years.
Most corporate staff use ‘hot desks’ in open plan areas, and its shift to a hybrid work-from-home model in 2020 and 2021 helped drive the reduction.
It also has remote working arrangements in place for certain staff across the bank. Only 60% of its staff will be on campus on any given day. This means it has a desk ‘utilisation’ rate of well over 100%.
For comparison, its Sandton head office campus (135 Rivonia Road) has around 42 000m² of commercial office space. This means it has removed total space equal to nearly five of its head office buildings since 2016.
Ironically, Nedbank doesn’t fully utilise its head office space, with a number of commercial listings available for pockets of space – some as large as 2 000m² – across various floors in the building. (Gross rentals are set at between R200 and R220 per square metre).
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