Cass Business School moved to new premises in the London Borough of Islington, and changed its name as part of a strategy formed by Lord Currie of Marylebone, who had become Dean the year before, to compete as an international business school in a market dominated by US universities. The school had previously been spread out across the City of London's mainly residential Barbican Centre development. Half of the £40 million funding for the new building came from the reserves of City, University of London. The school also received a gift from Sir John Cass's Foundation, founded in 1748 to educate children in
City of London School John Carpenter Street, which was named after the founder of the school, and further buildings constructed at the back along Tudor Street, with the school playground, Fives courts and cloisters enclosed within the site. These other buildings were demolished when the school moved again in 1986. Here the school was adjacent to the City of London School for Girls, which was founded by the City of London Corporation as a sister school in 1894 and moved in 1969 to its present site in the Barbican, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama which has also since moved to the