The FT’s head of Lex Jonathan Guthrie takes a high-speed tour of Mayfair, the City of London and Canary Wharf to see how leaving the EU will affect the capital’s financial landmarks. See if you get the FT for free as a student ( or start a £1 trial:
The brexit transition period is ending disruption is guaranteed for london’s financial centres join me for a high-speed tour of the places that matter we’re in metha hedge fund country round here you’ll find big names like lansdowne millennium and odie crispin odie stepped down as co-chief executive recently facing criminal charges but he’s better known for
Brexit controversies hedges mr odie included backed the leadership campaign of boris johnson with donations they also short sales sterling standing to make a profit from a no deal separation well od asset management has all kinds of positions but what the row really highlighted were the fault lines opened up by brexit investments aside hedge fund managers are
Very little affected by brexit they’re private managers of institutional money for the most part they set up rant here in the 90s and in the northerns they’d gone one step further than bankers who only moved homes here in the 18th and 19th century their businesses stayed in the city and that’s where we’re going to go next here’s the london stock exchange
In the shadow of saint paul’s could have been a symbol of eu integration if deutsche bursar’s bid hadn’t failed instead it’s remained independent a big data and exchanges group in that second activity it’s at the epicentre of brexit eu regulators are happy for derivatives clearing to stay in london for a little while longer after all big risks are associated
With it but they’re insisting that eu funds should trade eu shares and some futures in the eu lse and goldman sachs have set up trading venues in paris london roared ahead after it abolished the gents broking club that used to operate here in the big bang of the 80s continental centers now hope to claw back some competitive advantage the city reinforced
Its position as the financial hub of europe in the 33 years that i’ve been writing about it why first openness to foreign capital and expertise particularly from the u.s behind me is bank of america incorporating merrill lynch that was a big participant in the euro bond industry which flourished after the u.s imposed taxes in the 1960s merrell’s went on to
Buy british brokers at big bang and in 1995 u.s banks have invested heavily in london they like it here and want to stay but they’ve also made contingency plans they can shift capacity across the channel and celtic sea as required this man is the second reason for the preeminence of london the duke of wellington defeated napoleon at the battle of waterloo in
1815 with a little help from general bleuco and one of my terrifying scottish ancestors that allowed imperial britain to dominate world trade until the first world war the city of london developed huge critical mass sucking in capital both financial and human workers notably an army of clerks began to commute to work by train coronavirus means fewer commuters
These days the longer that working from home persists the less important physical hubs like the city of london will be physical co-location has been particularly important here this is the city’s insurance quarter at lloyds of london lockdowns have forced late adopters to do business online that’s positive costs need to fall but i think that something is going
To be lost if the industry goes entirely electronic and i’m not just talking about lunchtime drinking or office rents foreign capital has flooded into this district in recent years virtual workforces may be more of a challenge for insurance than brexit most insurers are already brexit having bolstered their eu outposts for us journalists it’s a reminder not to
Over dramatize ft research suggests that city businesses have moved far fewer staff than the 75 000 that were once predicted this is canary wharf it disproved claims that it was a white elephant years ago instead it’s become a thriving hub for investment banks like barclays and citibank but financial london has not expanded from this enclave as many had hoped
You could blame brexit for that and also regulation ironically the financial conduct authority moved from here to stratford as a pioneer but no forest of financial services businesses has sprung up around it there meanwhile the fca has to regulate a sector whose boundaries financial and geographic are once again in historic flux you
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How Brexit disruption will change London's financial centres l FT By Financial Times