JP MORGAN is set to scale back its ambitions in London by selling a site in Canary Wharf once earmarked for a new £1.5bn headquarters.

The American investment bank is close to appointing agents to market Riverside South, where it has planning permission for two huge office towers designed by the architect Richard Rogers.

JP Morgan emerged from the financial crisis relatively unscathed but suffered a trading scandal and heavy fines over allegations of historic mortgage abuses. Like other Wall Street banks, it has felt the pinch of falling trading revenues.

It bought Riverside South from Canary Wharf two months after Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 2008 and is thought to have spent tens of millions of pounds getting the site ready for construction. The bank moved its staff into Lehman’s former docklands headquarters, 25 Bank Street, in 2010 but said it was still committed to building the statement headquarters.

Source: Sunday Times