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Goldman Sachs Is Said to Create Brexit-Driven Frankfurt Entity

Goldman Sachs Is Said to Create Brexit-Driven Frankfurt Entity

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is creating a Frankfurt-based holding company to prepare for Brexit, according to people with knowledge of the plan.

Goldman Sachs Europe SE will house the Wall Street firm’s German advisory business, which will be merged with several Spanish operations, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Goldman Sachs said in an emailed statement Thursday that it planned “several Societas Europaea (SE) entities to reflect the firm’s international identity,” without saying where they’d be based.

The move doesn’t mean Goldman Sachs is about to move jobs from London, and no decisions are likely to be made in that regard for months, the people said.

Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein tweeted last month that he would probably be spending “a lot more time” in Germany’s financial capital. If Britain leaves the European Union without retaining membership of the single market or a special deal for financial services, some trading operations that international banks have based in London will likely be required to move to another nation in the trading bloc.

The Frankfurt holding company may in turn own a second unit that would consolidate Goldman Sachs’s continental European securities sales and trading operations, the people said.

Blankfein has also tweeted that his bank was still investing in its new London office, but suggested policy makers will ultimately decide whether the building is fully used as the firm once intended.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eyk Henning in Frankfurt at ehenning1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net, Keith Campbell, Andrew Blackman

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.