Brexit

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There are plenty of reasons to think trouble lies ahead. The U.K. is Europe's second-biggest car market and -- as Gadfly warned before the referendum -- it's a profitable place to sell motor vehicles. Thanks to the popularity of leasing, British buyers drive cars they might otherwise struggle to afford. Premium models with lots of add-ons earn higher margins.With a question over London's finance sector jobs, it's difficult to imagine British punters thinking now's the time to splash out on a prestige motor. Carmakers who export lots of vehicles into the U.K., such as Peugeot, face a double hit to revenue because of the weak pound. Then there's the risk that Britain's hara-kiri vote undermines confidence elsewhere in Europe too. With discounting already at high levels, European carmakers don't have much room to slash prices to prop up sales.

Car Industry Faces Brexit Breakdown - Bloomberg Gadfly

The danger to the UK’s financial services sector was highlighted by François Villeroy de Galhau, France’s central bank governor, who warned that banks would lose “passporting” rights to operate in the EU if Britain leaves the single market. The UK could try to adopt the path followed by Norway, which is a member of the European Economic Area but not the EU. But that has drawbacks: it requires Britain to implement all of the EU’s rules without having a say in writing them. And Jonathan Hill, the Briton who resigned at the weekend as EU’s commissioner for financial services, told the Financial Times that he was not sure an arrangement would work. “Most approaches that offer access come with free movement of people and I can’t see that flying given the weight of immigration as an issue in the referendum debate,” he said.

Banks begin moving some operations out of Britain - FT.com

But lawyers are warning that after Brexit, they would likely need a new legal home base, so they are preparing to shift at least some work to cities such as Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt. UK banks were also re-evaluating what to do with their businesses that trade EU — as opposed to UK — securities, because many analysts assume that clearing of those products will move to the continent. HSBC said before the vote that it could move as many as 1,000 trading jobs to Paris in the event of a Leave. But because the bank already has a Paris office, it could defer any decision until right before the UK’s exit comes into effect.

Banks begin moving some operations out of Britain - FT.com

The big US banks — JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — have large operations employing tens of thousands of people in the UK. They have historically set up their regulated businesses in Britain and then used its right to “passport” into the rest of the 28-member bloc.

Banks begin moving some operations out of Britain - FT.com