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Deloitte moves global HQ to London

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23rd Sep 2010
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Despite recent warnings of companies looking to exit the UK, one global accountancy network has issued a vote of confidence in the square mile.

In the same week as finance chiefs warned of a potential mass exodus of multinationals from the UK thanks to the government’s tightening of immigration rules, it was announced that Deloitte has moved its legally registered HQ from Switzerland to the UK.

Although the move will not have an impact on the amount of tax the UK will earn from the group – it’s decentralised structure means taxes are paid by member firms on a country-by country basis – it is being heralded by some in the profession as a sign that confidence in the UK as a leading financial centre is not lost.

Earlier this week PwC warned that many firms were considering moving parts of their businesses overseas due to the government’s plans to make the temporary cap on the number of non EU workers allowed into the UK permanent from April 2011.

“It is causing concern and people within PwC have reconsidered moving to the UK because of it,” commented Julia Onslow-Cole, head of immigration at PwC.

Despite this, Deloitte has pushed ahead with plans to relocate its headquarters to the UK. According to a report by the Guardian published this week, the move happened without media fanfare on 31 July 2010. No public announcement was made by the group at the time, but the move is thought to have been motivated (at least in part) by the legal controversy surrounding its previous status as an obscure Swiss entity known as a ‘verein’ – a membership structure originally intended for sports clubs, voluntary organisations and unions.

A spokeswoman at the group’s New York operational HQ told the newspaper: "After decades of operating as a Swiss verein, we recently decided to take a fresh look at our legal structure in order to determine whether it was the optimal organisation, now and in the future. We concluded that, although the verein structure had served us well over the years, we had outgrown it."

The firm employs some 169,000 staff around the world and revenues last year reached  £17bn.

 

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