Trillion British pounds of assets leave London amid Brexit uncertainty: EY

LONDON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Financial services companies are transferring assets worth around 1 trillion British pounds (1.3 trillion U.S. dollars) and relocating 7,000 jobs from London to other European cities, consultants EY have said.

EY, a professional services firm, released on Wednesday new findings based on public statements made by 222 of the largest financial services firms with significant operations in Britain covering banks, wealth and asset managers, private equity houses, insurers and others.

Since the EU referendum, 23 companies have announced a transfer of assets. Not all firms have publicly declared the value of the assets being transferred, but the value of the publicly announced transfers reached around 1 trillion pounds, up from 800 billion pounds in last quarter, according to EY Financial services Brexit Tracker.

The number of jobs that could relocate from the British capital to other European cities in the near future stands at around 7,000, with the number of companies that have confirmed a specific number of potential staff moves up from 30 to 39 quarter-on-quarter, it said.

Dublin remains the most popular location for companies. However, the gap has narrowed between the number of companies confirming relocation to Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris, EY said.

While financial services have put contingency plans in action to prepare for Brexit, none of them can know for sure how a disorderly Brexit will impact them, their clients, people and supply chains -- or, more broadly, the British economy, said Omar Ali, UK financial services leader at EY.

"Continued uncertainty will undoubtedly lead to more assets and people being transferred from the UK and not necessarily to the EU," Ali said.

However, Lord Mayor of the City of London, Peter Estlin, played down the impact of Brexit on the financial services industry in Britain.

"Financial services in the UK employ 2.2 million people and we're talking about thousands of people, 7,000 maybe 10,000 people, being relocated. So it is a very very small percentage," Estlin told Xinhua recently.

He was confident that London will continue to be a global financial hub after Brexit thanks to its strong and well-respected regulator, open economy, appeal to multinational talent and foreign investment, which means the whole ecosystem of all the professional and financial services can't simply be replicated in other cities.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to the EU to ask for a delay to June 30 to win more time for her Brexit deal to be approved by the British Parliament. But Any extension will need the support of the other 27 EU members.