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Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London, to avoid the risk of being cut off from most of their customers. But now if your employer changes f
by fxtentacle 6y ago
Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London, to avoid the risk of being cut off from most of their customers.
But now if your employer changes from being an UK to a German company, then suddenly that means that they might not be able to keep employing you, thanks to "your" British politicians trying to keep a hard stance against cross border employment.
So then suddenly your choices are:
- keep your passport, but you'll likely lose your job and be forced to move out of your house
- change your passport and keep your job and your house
To me, that explains why now so many Britons choose option B.
The article doesn't really explain it, but many of those asking for a passport now are already living in Germany, so they merely want to stay where they are.
And as someone living in Germany, I'd like to add that the government handling of Covid, unemployment support, and free access to healthcare will really sweeten the deal. Would you want to move from Berlin (almost no restrictions apart from wearing face masks) to London at this time?
- Nursie 6y ago> Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London Which ones have done this? IIRC JPMC have increased their office capacity in Ireland, but I haven't heard of multiple banks moving headquarters (though I heard lots of rumours that they would)
- alkonaut 6y agoThis seems to still not be settled. Hard to distinguish banks pressuring governments via threats to leave from banks actually leaving, still. https://www.americanbanker.com/articles/banks-are-ditching-london-offices-and-not-just-because-of-covid-19 https://www.americanbanker.com/articles/banks-are-ditching-l... > In the coming months alone, Barclays may ditch its investment bank's headquarters in the capital; Credit Suisse is offloading nine floors of office space; and Morgan Stanley is reviewing its entire London footprint.
- Nursie 6y agoSeems a mixture of speculation, downsizing of workforce and office space due to coronavirus, and all sorts of other things. I don't think that supports the idea that "Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London"
- alkonaut 6y agoYes it’s too soon to say what the outcome will be. The plans we hear about are either not yet realized, or just one option of many. I don’t doubt that many will shrink their presence because they need to expand in Dublin or Frankfurt, but it remains to be seen just by how much.
- fxtentacle 6y agoSee above, Goldman Sachs already forced senior positions to move from London to Frankfurt for "testing contingency plans".
- Nursie 6y agoSee above, it seems to be a handful of people, and they've got a long lease on a new HQ in London.
- fxtentacle 6y ago"Goldman Sachs is pushing ahead with making Frankfurt, Germany, its key European base. This week, the Wall Street giant agreed to lease multiple floors for offices in a 38-storey building, as part of its Brexit contingency plans." "The US investment bank, Goldman Sachs is to trial its Brexit contingency plans by making senior position transfers to Frankfurt, following concerns that the UK will lose it’s ‘passporting rights’." "Last month, Credit Suisse revealed it was planning to move about 250 of its 5,500 London banking jobs in the first phase its Brexit contingency plans. Bloomberg reported employees in areas such as trading and mergers and acquisitions were likely to be relocated to Frankfurt or Madrid, ..." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/brexit-latest-banks-commit-frankfurt-germany-eu-london-goldman-sachs-a8294651.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/brexit-latest-ba... https://qz.com/1095155/brexit-contingency-plan-goldman-sachs-leases-floors-in-marienturm-tower-frankfurt-germany/ https://qz.com/1095155/brexit-contingency-plan-goldman-sachs... https://www.relocatemagazine.com/news/brexit-goldman-sachs-triggers-first-staff-moves-to-frankfurt-dsapsted https://www.relocatemagazine.com/news/brexit-goldman-sachs-t...
- Nursie 6y agoThat Goldman Sachs article from 2017 is looking a little bit outdated in light of Goldman Sachs own press release about their new European HQ in London in 2019 - https://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/posts/goldman-sachs-london-plumtree-court.html https://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/posts/goldman-sach... So GS haven't moved headquarters, even though they have moved a small number of personnel. Some others appear to be increasing capacity in Frankfurt and other European centres, or at least they were two years ago. All very predictable and sensible given what may happen. But this still doesn't add up to "Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London". In fact so far there hasn't been a single example (here, in the thread) of a bank that has actually done that. Just a lot of speculation. (I'm not making any strong claims that it won't happen, by the way, I just wanted to challenge the trope that it already has happened)
- bennysonething 6y ago"had to move move their headquarters" No, they didn't. They've certainly started opening offices in places like Dublin though.
- jibbit 6y agoI noticed this morning that Goldman is boarded up like a derelict shopping mall
- clappski 6y agowhat building, the main GS building in Canary Wharf?
- Nursie 6y agoTheir main building is now in "The City" at Plumtree Court. This may explain why their Canary Wharf office looks a bit desolate.
- fxtentacle 6y agoYup, and as far as I know, the people who used to work there are now in Frankfurt. With that in mind, it would make a lot of sense for them to now try to switch passports so that they can remain there.
- Nursie 6y agoThey moved to a new HQ last year, with a 25 year lease (and minimum 20 years before break-off terms) - https://www.thetradenews.com/goldman-sachs-brushes-off-brexit-1-2-billion-london-hq-deal/ https://www.thetradenews.com/goldman-sachs-brushes-off-brexi... Seems unlikely they'll have vacated. The stories about people moving to Frankfurt all mention a tiny handful of people.
- DrBazza 6y agoBanks haven't moved HQs out of London, and likely never will when #1 and #2 in the world are New York and London, and share the same language, and want to be as time-zone close as possible.
- ben_w 6y agoMy grandmother was born at around the peak of the British Empire, and in her funeral there was a story of her childhood in a military base in the British Raj. The pound was the world reserve currency, India was the jewel in the largest empire the world has ever seen and upon which the sun would never set, and Westminster ruled directly and indirectly over more than a third of the world GDP — roughly equivalent to $30 trillion/year against the world of 2018. When my brother was a child, that same great empire had been so reduced that it found itself forced to make a series of humiliating fishing rights concessions to Iceland, total population ~350,000. The world can become unrecognisable in even just a few years; that just gets more likely when you assume nothing can ever change.
- DrBazza 6y agoTrue. Back in the early 00's when it looked like Frankfurt might compete with London, Gordon Brown introduced 'light touch regulation', and aligned us strongly with the US which made Frankfurt unattractive to US banks. Of course that fanned the winds of the credit crunch. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself post-2020, and Rishi Sunak doesn't do anything like that. But who knows?
- century19 6y ago-- more than a third of the world GDP When the British took over India it was 31% of global GDP. When they left India's share of global GDP was 2%.
- ben_w 6y agoI was referring to the Empire’s share of world GDP. What you say is interesting, and conveys one of my two points: that even great powers can fall.
- coldtea 6y ago>Banks kind of had to move their headquarters out of London. Well, they didn't. If anything they're flying with joy on the prospect of not being as tied to EU regulations and making the UK more of a tax-haven...
- fxtentacle 6y agoI'm not sure they'll be equally thrilled to lose the legal basis for having EU customers ;)