Walk into the first floor of 131 Sloane St. in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge district and you might assume you are in a lavish private apartment. With its reclaimed-wood ceilings, antique industrial lighting and family photomontages, it looks like the home of a hip and successful creative type.
But the property isn’t an artist’s lair or a writer’s den but rather the new headquarters of Marshall Wace Asset Management, a large hedge fund operator with $34 billion in assets under management as of Sept 30.
The look couldn’t be more different from the firm’s previous home, a sterile collection of polished wood, glass walls and rows of computer screens on the Strand, a main artery in Central London.
According to co-founder Ian Wace, the office change was partly a response to the challenges facing the hedge fund industry and partly a salvo in the escalating war for top talent.
Hedge-fund managers, particularly technology-intensive ones such as Marshall Wace, are in a fierce battle with the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. to hire and retain the world’s best data scientists. The work environment is an important part of the package, some believe.
Mr. Wace said the firm’s attrition rate is in line with the industry average of around 10% a year. He hopes to cut it in half. “That would easily pay for the extra costs of the new office,” he said.
Silicon Valley companies are famous for their brightly colored offices featuring pool tables and beverages on demand. Some financial firms have adopted the same sort of vibe, at least in parts of their business. In the heart of Toronto’s financial district, Aviva PLC, the British insurer, recently opened a new office to house some of its digital development team, with bare concrete floors and exposed ceiling ducts, and meeting spaces made from recycled shipping containers painted bright blue.