3 ms·

This is not a pro-Brexit opinion, but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. Tech business in particular mostly stayed in the U

This is not a pro-Brexit opinion, but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. Tech business in particular mostly stayed in the UK and London is still the best place to be within the European geographical region. And London is still the financial capital. Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt. Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.

onemoresoop 2y ago
Is it really?
- Reubachi 2y ago
  C'mn, contribute a little more to the thought/conversation/retort. Do you feel differently?Are you baiting some reponse for sake of proving a point?
t43562 2y ago
I was listening to some report about the economic effects which said that the economic impact of increased immigration had somewhat offset the negative impact s of Brexit :-) As for finance, it seems a complicated area. Some UK companies seem to list on the NYSE now which is a reminder that when we lose things they don't only have to be lost to the EU.
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  To be fair, basically every large EU company appears to be moving towards a US listing, as the pool of capital available is much, much larger.
  - t43562 2y ago
    Brexit probably helped that though. ie. the net effect of Brexit might have weakened both Britain AND the EU
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      Yeah, there's definitely a world where all EU/European businesses centralised in London. Honestly though, short term national interests have stopped that happening for 30 years now, so I don't expect any changes here (even though it's probably the best thing the EU/Europe could do to help more new tech businesses get off the ground).
disgruntledphd2 2y ago
> but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. So, I think the real issue was the new investments (net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote). Generally companies won't move unless forced to, but new companies generally seemed to avoid the UK post Brexit. In fact, Ireland benefited from a bunch of this, I worked for 1-2 companies who'd moved their headquarters and staff from the UK to IE because they needed an EU base. > Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction. Honestly, not unless you work in finance. I was offered a Big tech role in London a few years back, and it was basically my euro salary converted into pounds, so it didn't make any financial sense for me to move (which is easy because I'm an Irish citizen).
- krona 2y ago
  > net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote I don't know what stats you're looking at. As a percentage of market share the UK is essentially where it was in 2017 and inline with historical trends. Moreover it has been recently increasing largely due to poor conditions in Germany. https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-investment-in-uk-grows-as-europe-declines https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-inv...
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    The ONS appears to disagree: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessinnovation/datasets/foreigndirectinvestmentinvolvingukcompanies2013inwardtables https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/bus... You'll need to download the XLS file but it definitely seems to show substantial declines since 2016 (post Brexit vote). That being said, the numbers are so large that I'm concerned I'm misinterpeting something. My original comment was based on something reported in the FT recently, though I find myself unable to find the article itself.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      Actually, looking at more of the sheets I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't understand how they're measuring things here, so I dunno what's going on honestly.
adamm255 2y ago
Before Brexit I knew tech companies where they had a UK EMEA HQ, where they would have people looking after all regions, with people living and paying tax in the UK. Post Brexit, so many people started moving home, companies started opening more local offices in region. So the people who would have been on high wages paying high tax here, sending in the UK, are not back in their home country. Great for their home country, bad for the UK.
ajoseps 2y ago
Is London still a financial capital? LSE has had more delisting than listings in the last 5 years
- scrlk 2y ago
  Not in equities (the LSE is basically on life support), but still doing well in areas such as FX, insurance and clearing.
- Gupta2 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index London is #2 Nearest EU is at #10
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  London is still one of the two financial capitals of the world (the other one being NY). In finance no-one left London after Brexit, at most they shifted the legal minimum into the EU as required and not more.
greatpatton 2y ago
5 years ago, the value of companies listed on the LSE was 2 times the size of Paris. Now they are almost equal (Paris was first in 2023). In 2024 only 18 IPO took place on the LSE, the lowest number in the last 20 years. London is still the major place for financial services but other European center are growing faster.
- blibble 2y ago
  the LSE is a single market in a set of thousands it's an insignificant fraction of financial services London provides and certainly not significant data point to measure the EU against London
  - jodrellblank 2y ago
    Wikipedia's "List of major stock exchanges"[1] has 19 exchanges, not 'thousands', and the LSE is the 11th. How is that not a significant data point? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges (Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic are presented combined into one valuation)
    - blibble 2y ago
      there are more financial markets that stock exchanges exchange traded equities are a minority of trading (probably not even 1%)
FinnLobsien 2y ago
I think there's a few things here: a) Having English be the national language is a massive advantage which only Ireland shares (and Ireland has plenty of American tech outposts). That's an advantage people don't mention often. b) The EU keeps adding regulations, which make it a less attractive place to invest. The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point. But I think ultimately, it's probably down to network effects. The same way Twitter/X stuck around even though basically everything about it changed, cities might do the same.
- t43562 2y ago
  Inertia can be overcome - some random situation might do it and then the pull the other way would be unstoppable.
  - FinnLobsien 2y ago
    Sure, but usually inertia doesn't get undone by some incrementally different alternative, but by something qualitatively different. The UK and EU have roughly similar problems, benefits, infrastructure and regulatory environments. If there was a Singapore-like city state off of the coast of France, I'm sure things would look different.
- Gupta2 2y ago
  > The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point. Which new EU regulation since Brexit has UK copied into law?
  - FinnLobsien 2y ago
    This year, the UK has both an "online safety law" (EU analog: DSA) and a digital market regulation (EU analog: DMA) coming.
    - Gupta2 2y ago
      Ah thought you meant Brexit agreement compelled UK to copy new EU laws. UK politicians (both Conservative and Labour) love to look around world to copy any regulation targetting business, especially ones targetting tech and online censorship, not far off actual copying China's great firewall...
LatteLazy 2y ago
The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. This is exactly because anyone in power rapidly understood anything else would be a huge disaster. It was interesting watching a succession of "leaders" scream that they would deliver true Brexit, be given power, and then lose their nerve only to be replaced by the next "true" brexiteer. The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc). I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...
- blibble 2y ago
  > The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. this is not true in the slightest, we had the 2nd hardest exit possible a possible outcome could have been that we left the EU and remained in the EU single market and EU customs union there's this rather famous EU commission slide of the various options the UK could take: https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f5833b120a838d0059c0abfbb700.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f... with integration decreasing as you move right (the "brexit hardness") we ended up with the Canada option, the only harder option would have been to drop out without a signed deal (which thankfully didn't happen)
Havoc 2y ago
>Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt. The predicted overnight exodus didn't happen, but I'm certainly seeing a slow bleed out happening. We've had attrition on London headcount & all the replacements are in EU.

onemoresoop 2y ago

Is it really?

Reubachi 2y ago
C'mn, contribute a little more to the thought/conversation/retort. Do you feel differently?Are you baiting some reponse for sake of proving a point?

t43562 2y ago

I was listening to some report about the economic effects which said that the economic impact of increased immigration had somewhat offset the negative impact s of Brexit :-) As for finance, it seems a complicated area. Some UK companies seem to list on the NYSE now which is a reminder that when we lose things they don't only have to be lost to the EU.

disgruntledphd2 2y ago
To be fair, basically every large EU company appears to be moving towards a US listing, as the pool of capital available is much, much larger.
- t43562 2y ago
  Brexit probably helped that though. ie. the net effect of Brexit might have weakened both Britain AND the EU
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    Yeah, there's definitely a world where all EU/European businesses centralised in London. Honestly though, short term national interests have stopped that happening for 30 years now, so I don't expect any changes here (even though it's probably the best thing the EU/Europe could do to help more new tech businesses get off the ground).

disgruntledphd2 2y ago

> but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. So, I think the real issue was the new investments (net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote). Generally companies won't move unless forced to, but new companies generally seemed to avoid the UK post Brexit. In fact, Ireland benefited from a bunch of this, I worked for 1-2 companies who'd moved their headquarters and staff from the UK to IE because they needed an EU base. > Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction. Honestly, not unless you work in finance. I was offered a Big tech role in London a few years back, and it was basically my euro salary converted into pounds, so it didn't make any financial sense for me to move (which is easy because I'm an Irish citizen).

krona 2y ago
> net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote I don't know what stats you're looking at. As a percentage of market share the UK is essentially where it was in 2017 and inline with historical trends. Moreover it has been recently increasing largely due to poor conditions in Germany. https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-investment-in-uk-grows-as-europe-declines https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-inv...
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  The ONS appears to disagree: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessinnovation/datasets/foreigndirectinvestmentinvolvingukcompanies2013inwardtables https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/bus... You'll need to download the XLS file but it definitely seems to show substantial declines since 2016 (post Brexit vote). That being said, the numbers are so large that I'm concerned I'm misinterpeting something. My original comment was based on something reported in the FT recently, though I find myself unable to find the article itself.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    Actually, looking at more of the sheets I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't understand how they're measuring things here, so I dunno what's going on honestly.

adamm255 2y ago

Before Brexit I knew tech companies where they had a UK EMEA HQ, where they would have people looking after all regions, with people living and paying tax in the UK. Post Brexit, so many people started moving home, companies started opening more local offices in region. So the people who would have been on high wages paying high tax here, sending in the UK, are not back in their home country. Great for their home country, bad for the UK.

ajoseps 2y ago

Is London still a financial capital? LSE has had more delisting than listings in the last 5 years

scrlk 2y ago
Not in equities (the LSE is basically on life support), but still doing well in areas such as FX, insurance and clearing.
Gupta2 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index London is #2 Nearest EU is at #10
mytailorisrich 2y ago
London is still one of the two financial capitals of the world (the other one being NY). In finance no-one left London after Brexit, at most they shifted the legal minimum into the EU as required and not more.

greatpatton 2y ago

5 years ago, the value of companies listed on the LSE was 2 times the size of Paris. Now they are almost equal (Paris was first in 2023). In 2024 only 18 IPO took place on the LSE, the lowest number in the last 20 years. London is still the major place for financial services but other European center are growing faster.

blibble 2y ago
the LSE is a single market in a set of thousands it's an insignificant fraction of financial services London provides and certainly not significant data point to measure the EU against London
- jodrellblank 2y ago
  Wikipedia's "List of major stock exchanges"[1] has 19 exchanges, not 'thousands', and the LSE is the 11th. How is that not a significant data point? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges (Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic are presented combined into one valuation)
  - blibble 2y ago
    there are more financial markets that stock exchanges exchange traded equities are a minority of trading (probably not even 1%)

FinnLobsien 2y ago

I think there's a few things here: a) Having English be the national language is a massive advantage which only Ireland shares (and Ireland has plenty of American tech outposts). That's an advantage people don't mention often. b) The EU keeps adding regulations, which make it a less attractive place to invest. The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point. But I think ultimately, it's probably down to network effects. The same way Twitter/X stuck around even though basically everything about it changed, cities might do the same.

t43562 2y ago
Inertia can be overcome - some random situation might do it and then the pull the other way would be unstoppable.
- FinnLobsien 2y ago
  Sure, but usually inertia doesn't get undone by some incrementally different alternative, but by something qualitatively different. The UK and EU have roughly similar problems, benefits, infrastructure and regulatory environments. If there was a Singapore-like city state off of the coast of France, I'm sure things would look different.
Gupta2 2y ago
> The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point. Which new EU regulation since Brexit has UK copied into law?
- FinnLobsien 2y ago
  This year, the UK has both an "online safety law" (EU analog: DSA) and a digital market regulation (EU analog: DMA) coming.
  - Gupta2 2y ago
    Ah thought you meant Brexit agreement compelled UK to copy new EU laws. UK politicians (both Conservative and Labour) love to look around world to copy any regulation targetting business, especially ones targetting tech and online censorship, not far off actual copying China's great firewall...

LatteLazy 2y ago

The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. This is exactly because anyone in power rapidly understood anything else would be a huge disaster. It was interesting watching a succession of "leaders" scream that they would deliver true Brexit, be given power, and then lose their nerve only to be replaced by the next "true" brexiteer. The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc). I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...

blibble 2y ago
> The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. this is not true in the slightest, we had the 2nd hardest exit possible a possible outcome could have been that we left the EU and remained in the EU single market and EU customs union there's this rather famous EU commission slide of the various options the UK could take: https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f5833b120a838d0059c0abfbb700.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f... with integration decreasing as you move right (the "brexit hardness") we ended up with the Canada option, the only harder option would have been to drop out without a signed deal (which thankfully didn't happen)

Havoc 2y ago

>Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt. The predicted overnight exodus didn't happen, but I'm certainly seeing a slow bleed out happening. We've had attrition on London headcount & all the replacements are in EU.