July 27 (Bloomberg) -- David Butler, who advises hedge funds on tax issues, says he helped 23 firms leave London in the past 18 months, most of them for Switzerland.
“Managers do not feel there is a good relationship with politicians,” said Butler, founder of Kinetic Partners LLP in London. “When it is announced that taxes will go up, without any consultations, people understand there may be more on the way and they think the lifestyle they can have somewhere else is better than in London.”
Butler is one indicator London’s recovery from the worst financial calamity since the 1920s may take longer than New York’s. While both cities have claimed bragging rights as the capital of global capital, London’s financial district was hit harder than Wall Street.
The U.K. capital shed almost twice as many finance jobs as New York as a percentage of the total. Its workforce shrank by 29,371 in 2008, or 8.3 percent, according to the London-based Centre for Economic and Business Research. New York lost 20,200 financial-services jobs, or 4.3 percent, data from the New York State Labor Department show.
The value of daily trades on the London Stock Exchange fell 41 percent in the first half of this year from the same period in 2007. At the New York Stock Exchange, the drop was 29 percent.
I disagree on companies paying bonuses to managers who did an atrocious job and crashed the company into the ground.
ReplyDeleteThat is usually the company's business, however.
But if the company is taking government handouts, then it is our business. If they have money to waste like this, then surely they do not need the handouts.