London Brexodus Underway as Financial Firms Relocate 1,000 Staff

(Bloomberg) -- Financial-services companies will have moved more than 1,000 people to Frankfurt by the end of April in preparation for Britain’s departure from the European Union, according to an industry lobby group.

Banks are accelerating their local hiring plans and have moved in teams of people from the U.K. to ensure their new EU headquarters are up and running by March 2019, said Hubertus Vaeth, managing director of Frankfurt Main Finance. Professional-services firms have relocated hundreds of employees in anticipation of bank moves, said Vaeth, who expects as many as 10,000 jobs will move to the German city in the next few years.

Lenders including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are setting up new trading hubs in Frankfurt to serve their EU clients after Brexit, and are recruiting scores of staff ranging from risk managers to compliance officers and information-technology specialists. EU regulators have made it clear they expect banks to establish full-scale, standalone operations inside the trading bloc staffed by significant numbers of both front - and back-office staff as well as senior employees, as soon as possible.

While banks have welcomed a deal reached for a 21 month post-Brexit transition period, some are seeking more clarity before changing their plans. Deutsche Bank AG last month became the first large lender to announce the wholesale relocation of client business out of the U.K., and has previously indicated as many as 4,000 jobs could ultimately move. Citigroup Inc. has said it wants to have its new broker-dealer in Frankfurt up and running by the end of the year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gavin Finch in London at gfinch@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Jon Menon, Paul Armstrong

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