Citigroup’s Brexit Warning for London
Behind the Davos platitudes, Michael Corbat makes a veiled threat about Brexit’s impact on London’s position as a financial center.
Michael Corbat, chief executive officer of Citigroup.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergIf you weren’t listening extremely carefully, you’d be forgiven for missing it. But slipped into a broader conversation about Brexit’s impact on banking, a global finance chief has signaled that one of most dreaded, longer-term effects on the City of London is a real possibility.
Asked about Citigroup Inc.’s Brexit plans, Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat confirmed what is, by now, a given: assuming U.K.-based finance firms lose their passport to sell services into the European Union, the bank will shift a large chunk of its non-U.K. European assets to the continent. They account for about a third of the lender’s business in Britain.