Partner Article

HSBC may relocate its London HQ

Shares in HSBC have leaped after the bank announced it could move its headquarters from London.

The Japanese bank, which makes the bulk of its profits in the Far East, may leave the UK all together after 25 years.

HSBC has already planned to relocate some operations to Birmingham, with the capital losing out on 1,000 jobs in the process.

At the start of a annual meeting of shareholders in Westminster today, chairman Douglas Flint said: “We are beginning to see the final shape of regulation and of structural reform, including the requirement to ring-fence in the UK.

“As part of the broader strategic review taking place, the board has therefore now asked management to commence work to look at where the best place is for HSBC to be headquartered in this new environment.”

“The question is a complex one and it is too soon to say how long this will take or what the conclusion will be; but the work is under way.”

48,000 of HSBC’s 275,000 worldwide staff work in the UK with several thousand of them based in its Canary Wharf headquarters.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .