Johannesburg - Lloyd’s of London is pushing ahead with plans to open
European headquarters outside of Britain after the UK prime minister indicated
the country won’t remain part of the EU’s single market, according to CEO Inga
Beale.
The company expects to decide on a location “likely to be somewhere on the
continent” in the first quarter, Beale said in a Bloomberg TV interview at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Prime Minister Theresa May’s
speech this week “confirmed that to stay in the single market is not a priority
and it’s not going to happen and that means we have to go ahead with our
contingency plans,” she said.
British companies are considering their options on how to keep clients in
Europe after May stated the case for a so-called hard Brexit, with many making
plans to move at least some operations to cities such as Paris, Dublin and
Frankfurt. JPMorgan Chase & Company, HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group and
UBS Group have said they’ll relocate jobs from London.
Read also: #Brexit: a plan at last?
Beale said she expects to lose passporting rights and licensing that
allows Lloyd’s of London to do business with European companies. Lloyd’s,
founded in a London coffee house more than 300 years ago, expects to choose a
city for the new headquarters in the first quarter and approvals could take 12
to 18 months, she estimated. Malta was considered and ruled out because it
wouldn’t be able to handle the company’s global business, she said.
The insurance market is suffering from slim margins that could be
alleviated as investors move from low bond yields to betting on insurance this
year, she said. The US presidency of Donald Trump is unlikely to have a large
impact on the industry, though economic growth could boost sales, she said.