There is more smoke than fire surrounding media reports that London is set to lose its status as a major financial services centre due to Brexit, delegates at the annual Inrev conference in Berlin heard earlier this week.
Commentators have said that London could lose up to 100,000 jobs or more, but no single EU city would be able to accommodate so many new workers, Peter Leyburn, EMEA Director of client services, Colliers international, said during a session entitled Breaking away: Assessing the impacts of Brexit on real estate.
‘These jobs would need to be dispersed across nine different cities,’ he noted. ‘This could generate huge real estate cost savings, but this re-allocation of jobs would absorb the entire talent pool of workers with FBS (financial broker services ed,) skills of these cities.’
This also ignores the availability of real estate in these other cities, he added. 'Berlin, for example, has only a 3% office vacancy level.'
At this point, Dublin and Frankfurt appear to be the greatest potential beneficiaries of any withdrawal from the city of London. Some banks are opening a 'second home' in these cities as well as Paris while CEE is also gaining traction for outsourcing services, Leyburn said. He pointed out, however, that a downsizing trend was already becoming visible in the banking sector even before Brexit.
While Colliers' London teams are not complacent about the potential repercussions of Brexit, Leyburn noted that the city had been witnessing diversification of employment for the past decade thanks to the growth of the TMT sector. 'We've been seeing increasing demand from tech and media companies of the likes of Apple, Facebook and Expedia.'
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NEW EVENT
Real Estate Private Equity
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UBS Asset Management - Atrium, 7th Floor, 5 Broadgate,
London, EC2M 2QS, United Kingdom | 26 April, 08:00 - 11:00
For the first time, PropertyEU has organised a private equity real estate event examining the European market.
Hear from Ric Lewis, Chief Executive and Chairman of Tristan Capital Partners, as he delivers a TED-style talk followed by an interview on the realities of investing in 2017.
Joining him are Thomas Wels, Head of Real Estate and Private Markets at UBS Asset Management, plus two prominent investor-consultants: Paul Richards, Head of European Real Estate at Mercer and Paul Jayasingha of Willis Towers Watson.
Robin Marriott, editor of PropertyEU's CapitalWatch, is moderating the event.
Highlights include:
- What the top private real estate firms are doing
- Which strategies investors/limited partners are keen on
- How the competitive landscape is shaping up
- Who are the emerging managers to watch?
- Insights into the fund management industry
Attendance is free but places are strictly limited. Please register here to book your place
