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Report: Goldman Sachs tells some London staff to prepare for Frankfurt move

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Report: Goldman Sachs tells some London staff to prepare for Frankfurt move

More than a dozen of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s London-based banking, sales and trading employees are on notice to move to Frankfurt within weeks, as the U.S. investment bank accelerates its preparations for when the U.K. departs the EU in 2019, "two sources with knowledge of the matter" told Reuters.

Members of the bank's derivatives and debt capital markets teams working on German accounts in the U.K. were told that their activities will be shifted to Frankfurt and that they should prepare to move to the German financial capital by the end of June, according to the sources. Several employees have already negotiated and signed new German employment contracts, one of them reportedly said.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May recently ruled out retaining so-called passporting rights, which enable financial firms to offer services across the EU through just one local license. Goldman Sachs viewed the relocation of a small number of staff as the best way to minimize disruption to clients amid a lack of clarity on how the loss of passporting rights will impact banks in Britain, Reuters said in its March 7 report.

Meanwhile, the New York-based bank, which is planning to establish a post-Brexit EU hub in Frankfurt, is seeking to increase its workforce in the German city to 400 employees as part of a strategy to increase its presence across Europe, according to a third source. Jens Hofmann will be responsible for Goldman Sachs' financing group activities for Germany, Austria and Switzerland and will relocate to Frankfurt from London, that source added.