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After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

nytimes.com

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Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#51

Post by simonh »

randomname2 wrote: post #29

Some banks are already backtracking on their promises of leaving London for Paris or Frankfurt [1] [2]. [1] http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/06/30/hsbc-rules-out-leaving-l... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hsbc-headqua...

They are not backtracking, HSBC have never said they would move their HQ out of London. Since 2/3 of their business is in Asia it doesn't make as much difference if London is in the EU or not compared to many other banks.

What HSBC have said is that they may move about 1,000 jobs to Paris. That's because those jobs are tied to services that by law must be provided within the EU legal and regulatory environment. When London leaves that environment those jobs will go, not just at HSBC but across our financial sector. See my other larger post on this page for further details.

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#52

Post by richrichardsson »

simonh wrote: post #27
lordnacho wrote: post #7

There's an ongoing offshoring of certain divisions anyway, something the article alludes to with the Polish IT staff. That kind of thing is Brexit independent. Michelin stars are not synonymous with having good restaurants. Something like a good steakhouse is not captured my Michelin, which is a very narrow definition of good food. There's also the requirement of variety, which London does extremely well: food from m…

> It's also not that clear that Brexit will force finance away from London, which is well entrenched. Maybe not all, but a lot. Over the last few decades London has captured a lot of business that has to be conducted within the EU for regulatory and legal reasons. One example is clearing trades; London clearing houses have captured about 80% of clearing activity from exchanges all across Europe. there are many others…

The referendum was for leaving the EU, nothing was said about what would happen afterwards, so keeping the free movement of those 4 things could still be on the cards, in which case the whole thing was a complete and utter waste of time (which I believe to be true anyway) and the idiots that voted purely because of immigration will be sorely disappointed. Save for actually not exiting the EU (referendum was non-binding), unless the risk assessment guys at financial institutions are complete morons it's a foregone conclusion that they'll be relocating.

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#53

Post by bodyfour »

simonh wrote: post #27
lordnacho wrote: post #7

There's an ongoing offshoring of certain divisions anyway, something the article alludes to with the Polish IT staff. That kind of thing is Brexit independent. Michelin stars are not synonymous with having good restaurants. Something like a good steakhouse is not captured my Michelin, which is a very narrow definition of good food. There's also the requirement of variety, which London does extremely well: food from m…

> It's also not that clear that Brexit will force finance away from London, which is well entrenched. Maybe not all, but a lot. Over the last few decades London has captured a lot of business that has to be conducted within the EU for regulatory and legal reasons. One example is clearing trades; London clearing houses have captured about 80% of clearing activity from exchanges all across Europe. there are many others…

> Another is the LSE/Berlin stock exchange merger which was going to see the German exchange hosted and operating from London. That deal will not now happen.

DAX is in Frankfurt, not Berlin.

What will be interesting is if the deal does go on, but happens in reverse. It might provide an easier path for LSE-listed companies with a heavy European interest to move to DAX.

> we cannot even start to negotiate any deals with anyone until _after_ we officially exit the EU, which will probably 2 years after invoking Article 50

The two year window post-A50 is specifically for such negotiations. However I'm also pessimistic since I don't think 2 years is enough nor will the EU want to extend it (which would need unanimous support for member states)

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#54

Post by gjm11 »

simonh wrote: post #27
lordnacho wrote: post #7

There's an ongoing offshoring of certain divisions anyway, something the article alludes to with the Polish IT staff. That kind of thing is Brexit independent. Michelin stars are not synonymous with having good restaurants. Something like a good steakhouse is not captured my Michelin, which is a very narrow definition of good food. There's also the requirement of variety, which London does extremely well: food from m…

> It's also not that clear that Brexit will force finance away from London, which is well entrenched. Maybe not all, but a lot. Over the last few decades London has captured a lot of business that has to be conducted within the EU for regulatory and legal reasons. One example is clearing trades; London clearing houses have captured about 80% of clearing activity from exchanges all across Europe. there are many others…

> Since canceling the free movement of workers was the defining issue of the referendum,

I don't think there's any valid inference from "X is what a lot of people thought they would get by voting Leave" to "X is at all likely to happen if/when the UK leaves the EU".

A lot of people thought that by voting Leave they were voting for an extra £350M/week that would go to the NHS. Nigel Farage admitted within an hour of the result that that was never going to happen, and I haven't heard anyone from the Leave camp saying anything different.

A lot of people thought that by voting Leave they were voting for the UK's businesses not to have to comply with EU regulations. But I think the most likely paths forward involve the UK continuing to do that, in order to be able to continue trading on favourable terms with the EU.

A lot of people thought that by voting Leave they were voting for much lower immigration. A bunch of senior people from the Leave camp have made it clear that that is unlikely to happen.

You talk about "totally betraying many key issues in the referendum", but that's already happened, and it's pretty clear that in so far as there was any coherent plan on the Leave side it was always intended to happen.

(... But: A lot of people thought that by voting Leave they were giving a big fuck-you to The Establishment and communicating their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the UK. That, they managed just fine.)

I'm not, for the avoidance of doubt, saying that if/when the UK leaves the EU we will still have free exchange of goods, services, capital and workers, or that London will keep its passporting rights. We might well lose those things. But we can't tell that we will just because keeping them would mean not giving Leave voters what they thought they were voting for. Leave voters aren't going to get a lot of what they thought they were voting for, and they never were.

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#55

Post by michaelt »

gonvaled wrote: post #2

Why is English so important? You are going to speak it in the workplace, for sure, but why do you need that the people in the street are fluent in English? The couple of sentences that you'll exchange in the restaurant will come through even if people are not fluent.

Firstly, if you think people who move to a country and don't learn the language well are assholes, and you don't want to be an asshole.

Second, you may need a decent command of the local language to access services and deal with the local authorities. For example, getting your car back if it's towed. Figuring out whether you can get a visa for that foreign consultant. Expressing your views to your political representatives. Getting emergency care at a hospital. Understanding laws written in the local language. Passing a driving test. Talking to your children's teachers. Working out how much you'll be taxed on that thing you're considering having imported.

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#56

Post by bodyfour »

One thing this article doesn't mention is the political risk in each place.

Amsterdam is ranked high, but many consider it The Netherlands the next "domino to fall" since the far-right anti-EU party is polling so well there. So if you move business there, you might be back to square one a year later.

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#58

Post by saiya-jin »

yAnonymous wrote: post #41
varjag wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is market incentive to move banking to Holland, it will happen. The bankers will move where the jobs go, they don't have much say in the matter.

They are basically giving the bonuses to themselves, so if they can't do that, there goes the incentive to move to that country.

you don't know much about banking, do you

Re: After ‘Brexit,’ Finding a New London for the Financial World to Call Home

#60

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

chillydawg wrote: post #37
simonh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also not that clear that Brexit will force finance away from London, which is well entrenched. Maybe not all, but a lot. Over the last few decades London has captured a lot of business that has to be conducted within the EU for regulatory and legal reasons. One example is clearing trades; London clearing houses have captured about 80% of clearing activity from exchanges all across Europe. there are many others…

We may simply never leave the EU in the first place. I think parliament won't vote to leave because they're not idiots and we won't leave.

Given the last couple of months, I think there's no evidence at all to support the assertion that British politicians aren't idiots.

Ignoring the legalities, the Leave vote crossed the Rubicon.

The EU has always tolerated rather than enjoyed the company of the British establishment. So the EU is happy to see the back of the UK.

The British establishment still thinks it's the 19th century, so it's happy not to have anything to do with the 21st.

The biggest loser will be the City - which is beyond ironic considering the UK has literally spent the last few decades retooling its economy around the City. Now it's about to throw that away.

We're not great at much else. The things we are good at - culture, R&D, farming, tourism - all work better in the EU than out.

In practice, immigration is a meaningless non-issue.

Getting rid of Polish plumbers won't suddenly reveal thousands of competent English plumbers hiding in a cupboard somewhere. It takes time to train people up, and the biggest source of training money has been the EU.

It takes time to rebuild manufacturing, and the biggest source of funding for rebuilding manufacturing has been the EU.

It takes time to improve education, and the biggest source of funding for improved education - especially at postgrad level - has been the EU.

We could move towards becoming a startup economy, but if all the VC money moves to Europe, we won't have the money to do it natively.

The Leave vote is possibly the single most stupid decision in all of British history.

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