Standard Life likely to pick Dublin after Brexit

Insurer and asset manager Standard Life is likely to choose Dublin as the base for its EU subsidiary after the UK leaves the bloc, its chairman said.

Standard Life already has an operation in Dublin and is unusual among British life insurers in having thousands of customers in the EU. Standard Life’s choice comes after high-profile insurers AIG and Lloyd’s of London picked Luxembourg and Brussels for their new bases.

Standard Life shareholders will vote next month on the firm’s £11bn (€12.8bn) merger with rival Scottish fund firm Aberdeen Asset Management. Dublin, which got approval from Wall Street investment banking giant JPMorgan, could also secure the EU offices of Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, the Irish Examiner has reported.

BNP Paribas may move up to 300 London staff due to Brexit, depending on how clients adapt, a source told Reuters. The UK’s vote to leave the EU has forced global banks to examine where to move, given they expect to lose the necessary ‘passporting’ licence to operate across the EU.

BNP Paribas, which declined to comment on its plans, had 3,123 staff in its corporate and institutional bank in the UK at the end of 2016. Credit Agricole, France’s third-biggest listed bank, has said it could move about 100 of its 1,000 employees based in its London hub to France.

And Deutsche Bank has said it may have to move up to 4,000 jobs out. In London, a growing number of unoccupied older properties caused the overall office vacancy rate to climb to 5.8% at the end of the first quarter from 3.9% a year earlier, according to data compiled by Deloitte. That was the biggest increase since 2009. n Reuters, Bloomberg and Irish Examiner