Grimstone, speaking to Bloomberg on a trip to Delhi, said it was ‘no secret’ London will be a smaller financial centre post-Brexit and said Standard Life will no longer be able to service its 500,000 Austrian, German and Irish clients from the UK.
As a result, the firm, which is currently in the process of a mammoth £11bn (€12.7bn, $13.5bn) merger with Aberdeen Asset Management, is looking to make Dublin its new European hub, which would then be used to passport into the rest of the European Union.
Grimstone, who is also deputy chairman of Barclays, said opening a new Dublin branch as a subsidiary would then “make the German business a branch of the Irish business”
He added: “All of us are preparing road maps like that.”
The news comes just weeks after Standard Life announced the sale of its Hong Kong life business as it prepares to move away from traditional life insurance to focus on investment management.
