Frankfurt property in demand as London prepares for the loss of its financial centre

No one's listening to the City lobbyists because they have too often cried wolf in the past. But property fund managers are on the hunt for deals on the continent in anticipation of an exodus from London, and that tells you all you need to know

Frankfurt will benefit as a result of banks and others quitting London (Getty)

Lots of banks are close to quitting London over Brexit, the British Bankers Association warned over the weekend.

Lots of people were somewhat sceptical when the trade body said that.

The BBA, and other City lobbyists, have cried wolf so many times before, so why should it be any different this time?

It seems they’re always bleating about something. Tough new regulation? Bonus caps? Bonus taxes? Ring-fencing? The City is doomed! The banks will all leave and take their tax revenues with them if the Government refuses to do whatever we tell it to do.

All those things happened, and, well fancy that, the financial centre is still here.

This time, however, it’s different. This time the warnings are for real. The ability of London’s banks to sell services across Europe through the single market's passporting arrangements is set to go up in smoke as the UK heads for a hard Brexit that will see it quitting the single market.

Given how important the single market is to financial institutions, some operations will inevitably move across the channel as a result. This isn’t one those silly threats (and City lobbyists might like to consider the damage their past predications of doom have done to their influence in the face of this genuine crisis); it’s reality.

You don’t need to heed the words of the BBA and its friends to see that something serious is afoot. There are real signs that it has started.

One of them came to light as the working week got under way when it emerged that a property company managed by fund manager Schroders is bidding for an office building in Frankfurt.

Nothing strange about that, you might think. Property companies bid for buildings all the time.

Ah, but there is a reason for Schroders' interest in this particular property.

“The potential additional growth as a result of companies relocating from the UK enabled us to be firmer on pricing and financial underwriting,” Tony Smedley, a fund manager at Schroders, told Bloomberg of the proposed Frankfurt acquisition by the Schroder European Real Estate Investment Trust. In English: “We could afford to pay more because we're going to make a ton of money when London's financial community ups sticks.”

Schroders is hardly alone. Other UK-based property outfits have been scouting out places that might also soon house exiles from the City, anticipating booming property valuations and rental yields in places ranging from Dublin to Paris to Amsterdam, in addition to Frankfurt. London’s loss will be their gain.

“It will hurt Europe too if Europe takes a hardline,” some have started to argue. “Some jobs might move, but at the cost of driving a stake into the heart of the deepest the pool of capital on the continent.” True enough. But it will hurt a lot UK more and it was the UK that started this.

Of course, there will opportunities too, as the activities of London’s sizeable corps of property investors demonstrates.

But the net effect will be negative and the Tory leaders of the Brexit drive know it. That is why they are busily seeking out scapegoats and having hissy fits while trying to blame Remainers for the growing list of problems that they have brought down upon all of us.