JOBS will go after an offshore bank decided to pull out of the island.
Ansbacher, which has an office in La Plaiderie, yesterday announced that 16 staff would lose their jobs.
European general manager Tony Trew said the decision had been taken to focus on more high net worth clients from a new Geneva office.
‘The group has reluctantly decided to close operations of its wholly-owned banking subsidiary, Ansbacher (Channel Islands) Ltd,’ he said.
‘This is the final part of a process commenced last year to withdraw from the islands.’
Qatar National Bank bought Ansbacher in 2004. Since then companies owned by the group have been sold. These included Sarnia Yachts Ltd, which was sold in March, and Ansbacher Trustees (Jersey) Ltd, which was sold last December.
Guernsey International Business Association vice-chairman Alan Bougourd said the island needed to focus on encouraging businesses to the island.
‘As is often the case, even in times of economic prosperity, businesses will look to review their global operations and make changes such as these,’ he said.
‘This does highlight the need for us to remain competitive as the threat of other jurisdictions is ever present. What we must also remember is that the industry is made up of several sectors including banking, trust, insurance, funds and investment management. This diversity, we believe, will help us to see through these turbulent times and provide opportunities for those who have lost their jobs.’
The bank is contacting its customers individually and business will be transferred to other providers.
Article posted on 15th October, 2009 - 11.30am
9 Article Comments
It just proves the finance industry do not give a dam about Guernsey or its local population. Money is their god……One must feel for those the closure will impact on.
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Pete
There is no morals or nostalgia in business. Its always about the profit margins. Its the way it has to be!
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Would this be the beginning of the end of the finance industry on the island, I ask myself.
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slep – why on earth would it be?
one bank, for its own reasons, decides last year to leave the Channel Islands. Companies come and go the whole time.
the way that the GP linked this with the zero-10 annoucement on its front page yesterday was laughable and cynical.
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Yes TL, but we can still be cynical as to why a Qatari owned bank would want to go to Switzerland. Is perhaps because we will be unable to defend our secrecy facilities for those sensitive Arabs? And there’s Dave Jones extolling the virtues of dealing with them.
A lot of our business here is not tax driven, TL, it’s secrets-from-governments.
Have we signed any TIEAs with and Arab countries? China? Russia? Anywhere in Africa? Why is that? Do we not fish for biz there?
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sorry Arnald, I don’t get your point. Are you saying that the move to Switzerland is because we are not secret enough? Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what you have been asking for?
you are also sailing close to making a racist statement by suggesting that all Arabs are tax evaders.
why have we not signed TIEAs with those countries? I have no idea. Maybe they are not that concerned and can’t be bothered to commit diplomatic time to it.
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Most gulf states don’t have any income tax, so there isn’t any to avoid.
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Its rather obvious why we don’t have TIEAs with most of the Arab countries. They don’t have any domestic personal or corporates taxes because their oil and gas and other revenues finance everything that they need. But what’s wrong with privacy anyway if no tax is at stake ?
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Prehaps if the GP had spent more then its usual 30 secs creating another media “coup” they would have gone to the Ansbacher Website and seen……
In Switzerland, the Ansbacher Banking Group is represented by Ansbacher AG.
Established in 1974 as a trust company, it provides Fiduciary Services in liaison with other companies in the Ansbacher Banking Group.
Multilingual staff in one of Europe’s major financial centres with excellent links with the rest of the world.
For both private and corporate clients worldwide.
And the fact that they also pulled out of Jersey (40+ Jobs)
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