HSBC (LON:HSBA) could spend up to $300 million (£228.72 million) moving operations and jobs to Paris following Brexit, according to Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver.
This estimate was made by the lender, assuming the moving of 1,000 jobs with the associated legal fees.
“The $200-$300 million total is the cost of the transition to France,” Gulliver told reporters on Monday.
“The revenue we think is at risk from Brexit is about $1 billion, but we don’t expect to lose it”
HSBC is not alone in planning to move after the referendum. With little or no progress for trade deals made in the past year, firms such as Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) are hoping to expand hubs in the EU.
“Europe must not allow its financial capacity and capabilities to be diminished,” said HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint said in the earnings statement. There is a question whether “the economies of Europe will continue to have access to at least the same amount of financing capacity and related risk management services, and as readily available and similarly priced, as they have enjoyed with the U.K. as part of the EU.”
Flint recently met with Brexit minister David Davis.
“The meeting was evidence of that, it was a well-designed meeting with the right people in the room, and each side interested in understanding each other,” Flint said on Monday.
Meanwhile, lender Morgan Stanley has chosen Frankfurt as its post-Brexit hub. They will relocate approximately 200 jobs.
“Come 2019, we might not be able to service [EU] business out of London. To do that we need a European hub, a regulated entity with capital and risk management. We need to establish a second main hub to London in Europe.” a source told the Guardian.
The bank will apply for a licence with the local German regulator in order to keep trading within the EU.