Waiting for Brexit, UBS to move from London?

UBS has repeatedly warned it will move staff to the Continent in the wake of the EU referendum. Chairman Axel Weber claimed 1,500 jobs would shift from London to preserve its business on mainland Europe and that the two-year negotiation process for Brexit “simply would not work” for its relocation strategy.
“We cannot postpone decisions on how we run our European operations,” Weber said at a conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday. “As soon as we know definitely that Brexit will happen, you will see decision-making processes kick off in all financial institutions.”

Pro-European Union campaigners have repeatedly demanded that the Government heeds the City’s warnings over the threat of Brexit, citing the £71.4 billion contribution financial firms make to the exchequer. But many foreign banks reduce their taxes by offsetting profits against debt repayments and previous losses.

UBS does not disclose full details of its UK tax bill, but has had to reveal figures for one part of its British business in official EU documents. The bank said 400 of its 5,500 staff in London work in this division, and claimed that its overall contribution is likely to be much higher. 
However, the bank will not release this figure or say what percentage of its overall UK profits was paid as tax. Corporation tax is 20 per cent and from the start of last year, banks were charged an extra 8 per cent. 

There’s been a 17% drop in available jobs in the City compared to this time last year, according to the new London employment monitor from financial services recruiters Morgan McKinley. This might not seem huge considering the looming spectre of Brexit, but at this point last year just about every investment bank was rolling out redundancies after a torrid 2015, so it’s from a low base.