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In Paris, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has worked out of an exquisite 18th-century hotel particulier on the Place Vendome for the last 105 years. If you want an idea of how Brexit is transforming the landscape of Europe’s finance industry you should pop around the back.
Before Britain quit the European Union, JPMorgan’s Paris HQ was a relative backwater with about 250 staff. Thanks to the shift of EU banking out of London it expects to have 800 by the end of next year. Most remarkable, according to workers there, is that the Wall Street giant has pretty much added a whole new business line to its French HQ: Trading and sales.
To make room for all those traders, the firm has acquired a seven-floor modern extension behind the old building that looks out onto the terraced restaurants of the Place du Marche Saint Honore. Not as charming as the front entrance but proof of a serious investment banking operation.
It’s a symbol of how Paris has become the EU’s No.1 financial trading hub. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has more than tripled its local headcount since the Brexit vote. Bank of America Corp. has gone from 83 staff in 2017 to about 500 now.
But as we approach the first anniversary of Britain’s EU departure there’s a broader trend at play here, too — one that’s potentially more threatening to the City of London. While Paris is winning the fight for lucrative trading jobs, other places such as Frankfurt, Dublin and Amsterdam are emerging as EU financial hubs in their own right, just for different specialisms.