Goldman Sachs to axe 2000 London jobs if passporting rights lost, report says 

Goldman Sachs has drawn up plans to transfer as many as 2000 employees out of London to a new banking centre in Europe should the UK lose its passporting rights, the Independent newspaper reported.

The passporting rights allow UK-based banks to sell services freely across the rest of the EU and companies based in Europe unfettered access to Britain.

“There remain numerous uncertainties as to what the Brexit negotiations will yield in terms of an operating framework for the banking industry. As a result we have not taken any decisions as to what our eventual response will be, despite media speculation to the contrary,” Goldman Sachs said.

The newspaper quoted the bank’s co-head of the investment banking division, Richard Gnodde, as saying “every outcome is possible” when he was asked if the bank plans would involve moving some of its employees to eurozone cities.

“If passporting was totally removed, we would have to adjust our footprint and where people were located,” Gnodde said in June, the report said.

Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said the New York-based bank had a long history of adapting to change, and would work with relevant authorities as the terms of the exit became clear, the newspaper said. “Our primary focus, as always, remains serving our clients’ needs,” it quoted him as saying.

Following a weekend report in The Sunday Times about the plan to move one-third of its UK staff to the continent, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said the bank was still studying implications of the June vote to exit the EU.

“As a result we have not taken any decisions as to what our eventual response will be,” the spokesman said.

There has been increased worry that Prime Minister Theresa May’s government may not be able to maintain passporting rights when her government begins the exit negotiations with Brussels, something she has promised would start by next March.

Source: FINANCIAL REVIEW – Goldman Sachs to axe 2000 London jobs if passporting rights lost, report says

 

 

---