“It was announced with all the fanfare that a delighted developer could muster: Apple, the world’s first trillion-dollar company, the darling of countless smartphone addicts and technology geeks, was to be the anchor tenant of the new-look, redeveloped Battersea Power Station,” Deirdre Hipwell and Louisa Clarence-Smith report for The Times. “It was a genuine coup that both sides could hardly wait to turn into reality.”
“However, The Times has learnt that Apple has begun quietly making contingency plans in case construction of its intended British headquarters is delayed,” Hipwell and Clarence-Smith report.
“Though Apple is carrying out its due diligence ‘just in case,’ Battersea’s developer has pledged to deliver the new HQ on time. Simon Murphy, who took charge of work in April, said that he fully expected to deliver Apple’s new office by December 2020 as planned,” Hipwell and Clarence-Smith report. “‘We’ll give them [Apple] that building at the end of 2020,’ the chief executive of the Battersea Power Station Development Company, said. ‘That’s what everyone is very confident about at this stage . . . and then you’ll probably see Apple coming in some time after. Their fit-out is a big job.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: These are normal contingency plans any large company would be expected to have. We expect the Battersea development is going to be quite impressive when all is said and done.
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Cook is ‘very optimistic’ about post-Brexit UK – February 10, 2017
Apple CEO Cook optimistic about Britain’s future outside the European Union – February 9, 2017
UK PM Theresa May and Tim Cook discuss Apple’s UK presence amid Brexit – February 9, 2017
Britain has world’s strongest economy after Brexit
Friday, January 6, 2017
Check out the futuristic $17 billion Battersea Power Station project, home to Apple’s new London campus – October 17, 2016
Apple game-changer gives London’s latest redevelopment project new appeal – October 3, 2016
Apple to create stunning new $11.7 billion London headquarters at Battersea Power Station – September 28, 2016
How Brexit is already impacting Apple – June 28, 2016
Apple and Brexit: Britain could replace Ireland for international HQ – June 27, 2016
How the UK’s Brexit vote to leave European Union affects Apple – June 25, 2016
Historic Brexit vote roils markets worldwide; Apple shares drop – June 24, 2016
They’ll move in when pigs fly….
The HQ should be contingent on the agreement to fly the Pig at all times unless the weather is too bad.
Wondering which of the buggers to blame.
Like this?
The original pig ‘Algie’ commissioned and named by Roger Waters is still in storage with its maker, here in deepest Suffolk. It has been mended several times and is still usable.
I’ve been trying to get ‘Inflatable Rob’ as we call him, to ring Apple and offer Alfie for PR work. Unfortunately he is not very interested. Also in storage with Alfie are dozens of inflatable worms, dragons, ghouls and politically incorrect stage display effects from decades of major touring rock bands performances.
He doesn’t even own a computer so can’t see the point. Pity.
Brexit insanity has delayed all kinds of business investment in the UK. Nobody has confidence in May’s government. They are a bunch of whiners who want all the benefits of an open market with free trade but without using common rules, a common dispute resolution organization, equal human rights, or to pay for the maintenance of a common market.
Apple would fit right in with a Euro headquarters in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, or France. Each of those nations has a stable financial system with affluent customers, educated multilingual workforces, and above all their strong majority governments have the same values that Apple claims to have: equal rights and opportunities for all. The xenophobes in the UK and the USA are causing real damage that of course is hard to parse from the short term economic stimuli, but which will cause real economic pain when the bills come due and the trade wars squeeze your pocketbooks.
Insanity…?
How would you like it if all your neighbors were making all your financial decisions for you? Or wether or not you can leave the neighborhood to shop for yourself or make a private deal with someone outside the neighborhood?
In other words “FREEDOM!” What a concept.
Spare us the hyperbole. Nobody in a multinational coalition dictates anything. The EU makes rules together to harmonize how things work. They make it much easier to do business without having to attempt to comply with 26 dramatically different sets of national regulations. The EU has opened borders to ensure that, just like the USA, people &goods&capital can flow across boundaries without having to queue up at the border to wait for individual bureauctic processes to slow everything down.
I assume like most narrowminded individuals on this forum, you reside in the UNITED States of America, a federation of 50 individual states that, had each chosen pure independence, or splintered into factions as many of them originally preferred, would today be an insignificant patchwork of squabbling small fiefdoms which your founders specifically decided to NOT recreate from the European monarchies they fled. However, thanks to a single currency, centuries of liberal immigration policy, clear federal rules, and relatively strong institutions of education, research, and justice, etc, the USA today enjoys prosperity and peace. Europe has tried to move in the same direction, using diplomatic institutions to create a stable peaceful common market. It has tried to put behind its feudalistic and religious wars which have always marginalized the lasting prosperity that Europe might have enjoyed centuries ago if only democracy was implemented instead of go-it-alone feudal battles of aggression. And yet, to hear right winger Americans talk today, they think that walling themselves inside a castle and treating all foreigners outside the Great Wall as economic and religious enemies to be defeated in one way or another reminds me that small minded shirt term feudal thinking is alive and well. It will cripple the prosperity of future generations, but you Yanks will always be able to pound your chests and brag about how many nuclear warheads you have. Such a shame you can’t expand trade and peace the way you used to. There was a time when the USA was looked upon as a benevolent friend and trusted trading partner. Now nothing the trump administration says can be trusted.
The UK is shockingly choosing a similar dead end path. Formerly a militaristic and condescending global empire built on economic slavery, the UK in the last century gradually settled into its role as a cultural empire only, ceding its position as superpower (which was lost by 1916). The only way the UK was able to enjoy a high quality of life in the 20the century was thanks to Euro trade, much of it from low cost east Europe states. Now the UK is now accelerating its path towards irrelevance as it will not have a seat at the table to discuss or decide rules, trade policy, international cooperation in areas of law enforcement and security, etc. Xenophobes on the island will find that there is no prosperity in isolation. They will keep importing food, labor, and manufared goods from mainland Europe but Brits will have to pay more. The pain hasn’t barely started yet.
Utter wank. Brexit will be a catalyst away from the unelected bureaucrats of the EU. It didn’t figure ONE IOTA in having contingency plans. But as someone who clearly doesn’t either understand or respect democracy, I’ll leave you to cry wank yourself to sleep.
Talk about “hyperbole.”
“Nobody in a multinational coalition dictates anything. The EU makes rules together to harmonize how things work.”
You contradict yourself in short order and simply can’t have it both ways. The Reality is they make rules, dictate everything in the holy name of harmony, how rich. For proof of dictatorship — one only has look at the EU taking Ireland and Apple to court over an agreement they reached together to benefit both parties. How dare they act on their own!
Lastly, the United States is ONE nation. European countries are all separate nations with their own UNIQUE borders, language, races and culture for hundreds of years that is threatened with open borders. Certainly not the same thing. Frankly, I could not care less, they have to live with leftist dictatorship, high taxes all in the holy name of harmony.
Work will set you free, yeah right…
No, Reality got it right. When you are a member, the “they” you so disdain would include you, and then you can speak as “us”, a group that can solve problems together.
Leave the club, and you are left as an outsider minority entity, with no choice but to attempt to negotiate diplomatic matters from outside the most powerful trading bloc on the planet.
It’s hard to see what the UK expects to gain. It won’t get cheaper goods, it won’t sell its services at more profitable rates. It will isolate itself as Emperor Trump proposes the USA does. Name one time in history that a nation became stronger over the long term by walling itself up behind baracades. One example, Goeb. Can you do it?
The U.K. rightly was fed up and struck out on their own. We shall see if it pays off. Freedom!!!…
Facts, facts facts….not wanted here dontcha know? Also not needed here…perspective, history, reality, truth…or any argument that does not rely on xenophobia, rank stupidity, Americentrism or US exceptionalism.
Absolutely bollocks.
I’ve been in business since before the U.K. joined the EU. The EU has reduced my costs – with centralised buying of materials, ‘reduced’ the form filling for exports – no more cross border permits, ‘increased ‘ my competitiveness across the EU to the point where 60% of our business is exported – by limiting protective import barriers and expedited transport and communications improvements that speed up delivery in a business world that brooks no delays.
After Brexit, despite attending dozens and I mean ‘dozens’…of industry and government panels, forums and tradefair conferences set up to explain future opportunities, regulations and interim funding….I have absolutely no clue as to how the government will deliver their promises. They have given no assurances about cross border funding via export guarantees, no explanation of how essential materials imports ie raw supplies not available from the U.K. – will be protected and not delayed…..just for starters. Two Effing Years! and all industry gets is “Don’t worry, trust us, it’ll all be alright in the end”
Worst of all, I still have no idea about the future status of three of my employees. My German foreman Dieter, happily settled and integrated here for seven years with his family, who oozes precision and competency and who brought with him EU export business otherwise out of sight, my Italian office boss Gala a mathematician who speaks seven languages and does technical help and my Syrian refugee maintenance guy who can coax the dead back to life and fix a machine with spit and sawdust Krushy….all in limbo. All crucial to my business and that 60% export business that contributes to U.K. coffers.
Oh, and from an insider, small businesses are NOT impressed and talk endlessly of cutting staff to meet extra costs as their ’contingency’ planning. It’s about time you clueless deniers of Brexit disaster got real.
Gotta love the true smell of delusion in morning or is it simply ill judged ignorance from someone sunning himself on planet Zog. Whatever to rights and wrongs of Brexit your description of ou friends on the Continent reminds me of my brothers 70s idealistic descriptions of Chairman Mao’s China. And you really think the EU and Apple share the same ideals? You need to read up a bit on that one a little knowledge is always best before you spout misplaced crap and wishful thinking, the French and Germans have only one aim in mind and the rest of the community are but pawns in their game. And I say that as someone who was an avid supporter for some 30 years until I saw there was no chance of them changing their ways and truly acting as partners over crafty, disingenuous dictators. FIFA on steroids no less.
Hey MDN mods, you gonna let blatant bigotry on here?
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/zog
Whatever your opinion on how incredibly bad Brexit is going to be, letting hate like that go unchecked is not ok. This is a Macintosh news site, not a white supremacist safe place.
Flying pigs and the KKK are everywhere these days.
That is going to be Bankside on steroids, can’t wait to see it finished. Hell I worked on a previous plan for it over twenty years ago, I am all but retired now, but will be worth the wait I think now that finally it gets a new long overdue life with a worthy occupier. The most stunning (alongside Bankside) example of how English Gothic evolved into English Art Deco through, for the most part the work of the Gilbert Scotts.