Express & Star

Npower offices in Oldbury up for sale for £6 million

The offices of energy giant Npower have been put up for sale for more than £6 million.

Published
Birch House

Around 500 people are employed at Birch House, off the Wolverhampton Road in Oldbury.

Npower has a lease on the building, owened by REI Investors, until 2021 but it is unclear what will happen after then. The firm said it didn't expect any sale to have an impact on its occupation.

The base is being advertised by property firm Bond Wolfe and offers in excess £6 million will be considered initially.

It says the building is 'let in its entirety to Npower providing excellent income security'. The company took out a 20-year lease on the building in 2001.

Birch House, near Birchley Island, became main West Midlands base of the gas and electricity giant, which serves six million customers in the UK, after the closure of its offices in Kingswinford in 2013, which employed 300 people.

In the same year, 250 staff in Oldbury lost their jobs when npower closed its Birchfield House and Quayside House offices in the town.

Workers at Birch House were hit with fresh uncertainty last year when Npower announced it was to axe a fifth of its workforce, as a base in Burton-on-Trent was closed.

A Npower spokesman said: "We currently lease Birch House on a 20 year lease, which expires at the end of March 2021. Our landlords are at liberty to sell the property with Npower as the sitting tenant and we don't expect that a change of ownership will have any impact on our current occupation.