UK Firms Pushed to Focus on Risk Management Find Their Own Gov’t Risky

12/09/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Financial services firms in the UK tasked with dialing down internal risks are now frustrated with the kind of risk that tends to result from political tinkering. Between warnings of a UK credit downgrade and threats of a new 50 percent bonus tax, the value proposition of being UK-based is becoming a more serious topic of discussion.

According to the Telegraph:

“Income tax and national insurance are bad enough, but it’s measures such as much lower tax relief on pension contributions that group chief executives now tell me are tipping the balance. As more top management go abroad, the centre of gravity of an organisation moves too.

“A report by Hay Group, the management consultants, on Tuesday showed how Britain’s white collar class ranked 43rd out of 56 countries for spending power thanks to high taxes and the high cost of living here. It’s the first part of a process that eventually ends up in companies moving out wholesale. Which is why you won’t see a stampede for the exit, but instead the process of other countries cherry picking our best assets will go on under the radar.”

Let’s hope the US is paying attention to this example of where lax monetary policy and aggressive taxation can lead. More details are available from the Telegraph in its article on how companies are reaching the conclusion that the UK itself is a bad risk.

Rocky Vega

Rocky Vega is a regular contributor to The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.

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