The fourth edition of the Choose France summit is being held this Monday at the Château de Versailles in the presence of 120 international bosses. The Paris Europlace International Meetings will take place on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours after Emmanuel Macron visits the new JP Morgan hub.
A great week of visibility is opening up for the Paris financial centre. Six months after the Brexit, and in the wake of Valérie Pecresse's re-election as president of the Ile-de-France region, international finance is invited to the capital to celebrate Paris' new status as first place of the European Union.
The fourth edition of the Choose France summit, scheduled for January 25, was postponed until the summer due to health conditions. It will be held from this afternoon at the Château de Versailles in the presence of 120 international business leaders invited by the President of the Republic. Emmanuel Macron had already met, by videoconference, with a hundred leaders of major foreign groups at the beginning of the year. He had had the opportunity to praise the measures of attractiveness and stability taken by his government:
Structural reforms
"Our structural reforms are paying off, which is why we will not and cannot slow down. The corporate tax rate will be lowered to 25% next year, that has been voted. We are also not going to go back on the wealth tax cut. We are also lowering taxes on production by about EUR 10 billion a year, which is quite unprecedented. This has been adopted by our Parliament. We are also trying to simplify things, to reduce bureaucracy, to make things more predictable"
In a study published in April, the London-based think tank New Financial had underlined the attractiveness of Paris in the context of the UK's exit from the European Union. Out of 440 financial services companies that have moved part of their activities, staff or legal entities to the EU, 102 chose Paris, according to the organisation. The French capital followed Dublin in the study, but was ahead of all continental European financial centres, including Frankfurt and Amsterdam, which had just 63 and 48 facilities.
Locations and jobs
"Paris is turning a corner. It is becoming more open and international, and even the European Union's leader in financial matters.This is the first time we have ever seen a financial market that has been able to meet the needs of a large number of investors," said Arnaud de Bresson, chief executive of Paris Europlace, the association that promotes the Paris financial centre, in an interview with Finascope last month.
"Paris has taken the lead in terms of the number of new projects and jobs. In the financial sector, we have 120 projects already completed or underway in Paris and the Ile-de-France region. This represents 4,000 direct jobs moved from London to Paris and a potential of 15,000 additional indirect jobs", he had added.
He had mentioned in particular "Bank of America, which is developing 400 new positions, JP Morgan, which is expected to recruit about 300 additional people in the next two or three years, and Morgan Stanley, which is going to double its teams, and Goldman Sachs, which aims to increase its staff from 80 to 350 in two years".
The New Financial study nevertheless noted that there was considerable room for improvement in France in terms of the attractiveness of head offices.
Big ambitions
On Tuesday morning, Emmanuel Macron will visit the new JP Morgan offices in Paris in the company of Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of the American bank, which has great ambitions in the capital. The hub is to accommodate about 440 employees by the end of the year and 800 by the end of 2022.
In the afternoon of Tuesday, the international financial community will also meet at the traditional annual Paris Europlace meetings. The international forum will be held from 2pm at the Gabriel studio, near the Champs Elysées in a digital version and reduced to half a day. Conference theme: Stimulating the European recovery and sustainable finance, Boosting the European Recovery and Sustainable Finance.
Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery and Valérie Pécresse, President of the Ile de France Region, will be speaking at the event. Stephen Berger, Managing Director & Head of Government and Regulatory Policy at Citadel will also be present.
The US financial group obtained its regulatory approvals last month from the AMF and the ACPR for the start-up in Paris of its management and market-making entities, Citadel and Citadel Securities. Two leaders have been appointed to develop the Parisian activities.