Skip to main content

Corporates Move to UK Post Brexit and Confirm they are Staying

Most reviews of the effect of Brexit on business locations describe all negative business events as due to Brexit.  There is an outstanding example of this bias in the September 2019 Metro article:  "All the companies that have collapsed or moved abroad since Brexit". It is telling that the Metro article was written before Brexit had happened and so was propaganda against Brexit. Disentangling the effects of the global downturn in 2018-19 from Brexit is simple because no-one could be sure that Brexit would happen until December 2019.   Indeed, before the appointment of Johnson in mid 2019 it seemed more likely to most Remainers that Brexit would be overturned and there was huge uncertainty until December.  Forget about the "surveys" and propaganda, what has actually happened since Brexit?

Moves of Headquarters and major investments to the UK since Brexit

Unilever has moved its headquarters to London from the Netherlands

According to figures from the Financial Conduct Authority, processed by the consultancy Bovills, one thousand banks, asset managers, payments companies and insurers plan to open offices in the UK.  These are real applications, not a survey.




Shell is considering moving its corporate HQ to London from The Hague

Novartis is investing millions in a new centre in White City London


Siemens moved its UK headquarters to a new Manchester site.


Avon is moving headquarters from the US to the UK

BASF is creating a new £145m UK headquarters in Stockport.


TikTok has chosen London as its European hub.


Moves to the EU from the UK

The moves to the EU are complicated by the fact that the label "EU Headquarters" does not apply to premises in the UK.  This means there are two sorts of move ahead: actual moves and moves of the title "EU Headquarters".

Moves of "EU" title or Euro related bank business to EU based premises

Sony will move its EU headquarters to the Netherlands. They said there will be no staff losses in the UK.

Panasonic moved its EU headquarters to Amsterdam although this involves only 20 staff

Several banks are moving their Euro processing to the EU.

Moves of actual headquarters and major investments to the EU


N26 a small German startup has withdrawn from London, some say due to financial problems with the parent company.

I am having a huge problem finding transfers of whole businesses from the UK to the EU.

There seems to be no sign of the promised mass exodus of corporations from the UK to the EU.  If anything the move is in the opposite direction.

If anyone knows of more HQ investments and transfers (not "surveys") please comment below and they will be included.

30/7/2020



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith.  What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas?  In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands.  The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata.  The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile.  In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b...
35 comments
Read more

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president.  Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H...
2 comments
Read more

Membership of the EU: pros and cons

5th December 2013, update May 2016 Nigel Lawson, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer,  recently criticised the UK membership of the EU , the media has covered his mainstream view as if he is a bad boy starting a fight in the school playground, but is he right about the EU? What has changed that makes EU membership a burning issue?  What has changed is that the 19 countries of the Eurozone are now seeking political union to escape their financial problems.   Seven further EU countries have signed up to join the Euro but the British and Danish have opted out.  The EU is rapidly becoming two blocks - the 26 and Britain and Denmark.   Lawson's fear was that if Britain stays in the EU it will be isolated and dominated by a Eurozone bloc that uses "unified representation of the euro area" , so acting like a single country which controls 90% of the vote in the EU with no vetoes available to the UK in most decisions.  The full plans for Eurozone po...
15 comments
Read more