Fund Giant Fidelity Moves UK Jobs To Dublin

One of the world's largest fund managers is to move scores of jobs from Britain to Dublin, it has emerged just days after the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Sky News has learnt that Fidelity International will inform affected staff in the next week that approximately 100 roles will move from its UK offices to the Irish capital amid forecasts that swathes of City jobs will be relocated in the wake of the vote for Brexit.

However, Fidelity, which manages nearly £189bn of assets, insisted that the move was planned before last week's referendum and was not related to the outcome of the poll.

The company employs just over 2,000 people at sites across the UK, in asset management and funds administration, meaning that the roles being moved to Dublin represent about 5% of its UK workforce.

In response to an enquiry from Sky News, a Fidelity spokeswoman said its "presence in a country has not been driven by EU membership".

"Our UK domestic business has substantial scale and we are making considerable investments in it, this continues and will not change," she said.

Despite its insistence that the relocation plans are unrelated to the EU referendum, the timing of Fidelity's move will nevertheless stoke fears that the City's status as Europe's most important centre for the asset management is already being undermined.

"Looking at how we make the best use of each site we have globally - we have 24 - to ensure we have the right roles in the best locations to best provide services to support our clients is critical and part and parcel of this long term strategy," the Fidelity spokeswoman said.

Fidelity's move will come as some of its rivals actively plan to respond to Brexit by moving some of their operations to other EU member states.

Colombia Threadneedle and M&G Investments have both begun work to expand their operations outside the UK in the wake of the referendum result.

“We have begun the process of applying to expand the scope of our Luxembourg-based management company to enable us to establish an asset management presence in the EU," a Colombia Threadneedle spokesman said this week.

"This would involve us having some fund managers based in Europe before the UK leaves the EU.

"We currently have investors in 12 locations globally, so we would expect this to be a smooth transition.”

Investment banks including major donors to the campaign to keep the UK in the EU, such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) and JP Morgan, are also drawing up plans to relocate thousands of UK jobs, although staff are unlikely to begin moving until the scope of a future UK-EU trade relationship is clearer.

Sky News revealed this week that Visa (Xetra: A0NC7B - news) , the credit card giant, may also be forced to shift hundreds of London-based jobs to the EU.