Paris in 20,000 Brexit jobs bid

Paris could lure as many as 20,000 workers from Britain’s finance industry with the exodus potentially starting within weeks as the UK begins its withdrawal from the EU, according to Europlace, the French capital’s lobby group.

Paris will make its case to London-based executives in February as it competes for talent with rival cities such as Frankfurt.

Europlace’s marketing materials show it will extol how Paris already employs more than 180,000 financiers, is home to the region’s biggest bond market and boasts the second-largest pool of asset managers.

The continental race to take advantage of Brexit is heating up as British prime minister Theresa May plans to trigger the start of negotiations by the end of March.

Global bank chiefs warned Ms May they will soon start shifting operations and jobs from the UK to elsewhere in the EU unless she can protect their easy access to its market.

“We feel decisions will be taken in the first semester of the new year,” Arnaud de Bresson, Europlace’s managing director, said.

“We see institutions are accelerating their process of thinking.”

HSBC said in the run-up to last year’s referendum it planned to move as many as 1,000 employees to Paris from London if voters backed Brexit, while Citigroup is considering relocating some of its London-based equity and interest-rate derivatives traders to Frankfurt. -

— Bloomberg