Rtn John Watkins: My life in the City - Part 2

John Watkins ended Part 1 of his talk with his involvement in designing premises for the Union Bank of Switzerland (“UBS”) all over the world. Part 2 took the story from there.

UBS was growing its global activities and adding greatly to its financial and commercial presence in the City. London was becoming its focus, adding many already well-known companies to the group. John was charged with the purchase of the P&O building in 1989, which was a 16-floor tower (13 floors above and 3 below ground) planned to become the bank’s new London Banking Headquarters, moving out of three buildings in Old Broad Street; the building was multi-tenanted, mainly Banks, Shipping and Insurance companies. The plan was to move out current residents, strip, remodel and totally refurbish the whole building; this was to take about 2 years. All was going to plan and most of the transfer of UBS staff into the new building had been completed. With additional premises required to meet the need of the growing group, John was transferred to the newly-purchased Broadgate development as a senior member of the development and planning team.

However, on Friday the 10th April 1992 (about 9.30 in the evening) with little or no notice, the IRA exploded a large Semtex bomb outside the Baltic Exchange, St Mary Axe, and the adjacent Commercial Union and P&O buildings, causing a huge amount of damage and loss of life. This was the biggest bomb to be exploded on Mainland Britain since WWII. Three people died and 91 were injured. It cost the City £800 Million (double that at today’s prices) to rebuild what had been damaged. It took UBS a year to repair, during which time the team were able to maintain the operating requirements of the bank and tenants.

The unbelievable then happened - a year later, just after UBS had completed the reconstruction, the IRA exploded a second bomb about 10.30 am on Saturday 24th April 1993 in Bishopsgate - this time there was prior notice but one person died and 44 were injured. The position of the explosion caused minor damage to the P&O building and the Broadgate development facing Liverpool St. This meant John had to organise another clean-up and repair exercise to both buildings.

His office was now permanently in Broadgate and he had exchanged his project-driven job to become Head of Services, which encompassed buildings, structure/construction, architectural design, maintenance, security, catering, cleaning, travel, transport, printing and product purchase; you could say, everything that was not banking; he held this position until he retired in 1995. Banking, like most of the City institutions, had decided that the way forward was to rationalise staff numbers by mechanisation and outsourcing expertise. This John found difficult to be involved in, as most of the staff who reported to him were long-standing colleagues and he did not agree with going down this route. He was offered other positions within UBS or the option of early retirement. He decided to accept the latter and has now been a pensioner for 28 years!