\n<\/p>\n
The boss of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, has warned he could scrap plans to build a new \u00a33bn UK headquarters in London if Keir Starmer is replaced by a new Labour prime minister who is hostile to banks.<\/p>\n
JP Morgan revealed plans last November to build the tower in Canary Wharf, hours after lenders were spared tax hikes in Rachel Reeves\u2019s autumn budget following strong lobbying by the banking sector.<\/p>\n
Dimon said the US bank could look past the current political instability around Starmer\u2019s future in No 10, which has roiled bond markets and sent domestic bank shares plunging.<\/p>\n
However, he warned that plans to build the bank\u2019s new HQ \u2013 which will house more than half of its 23,000 UK staff \u2013 could be reversed if a new leader were to target lenders.<\/p>\n
He told Bloomberg TV during an interview in Paris on Tuesday that construction plans would be threatened \u201cnot [by] political instability, but if they become hostile to banks again\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always objected to the fact \u2026 we paid probably $10bn in extra taxes by now,\u201d he added. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s right or fair. If that happens too much we will reconsider.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is understood that Dimon was referring to the UK\u2019s decision to target banks with two sector-specific taxes as a result of the 2008 financial crisis: the bank surcharge, which is a tax on bank profits, and the bank levy, which applies to certain parts of lenders\u2019 UK balance sheets.<\/p>\n
Dimon has publicly praised Starmer and Reeves in the past, and said on Tuesday that Starmer was a \u201csmart guy\u201d. However, JP Morgan stressed in November that the Canary Wharf tower plan would depend on \u201ca continuing positive business environment in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n
Questions were recently raised about the financial inducements the company has sought from the UK government to build the skyscraper. JP Morgan has requested a discount on its business rates, according to documents produced by Tower Hamlets council, despite having reported a net income of $57bn (\u00a343bn) in 2025.<\/p>\n
The current political turmoil has ruffled feathers in other corners of the City, with one investment banking source telling the Guardian that stock market flotations \u201ccould be derailed\u201d by a leadership fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re planning for an IPO, for example, you need stability in the markets \u2026 There\u2019s been talk of a number of IPOs coming down the track in the UK, and that gets derailed in situations like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
They added that there had been \u201cquite positive signals from the City\u201d about Reeves\u2019 plans to generate growth, \u201cso for anything to be derailed at this point would be damaging\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst thing at the moment would be going through another messy leadership race,\u201d the source said, adding that \u201cwe don\u2019t want to see what we experienced with the previous government\u201d \u2013 a reference to the Conservative party\u2019s rotating cast of prime ministers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The boss of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, has warned he could scrap plans to build a new \u00a33bn UK headquarters in London if Keir Starmer is replaced by a new Labour prime minister who is hostile to banks. JP Morgan revealed plans last November to build the tower in Canary Wharf, hours after lenders were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4329,10727,303,6829,1661,7687,2672,6651,1347],"class_list":{"0":"post-49351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-3bn","9":"tag-banks","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-hostile","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-morgan","14":"tag-replaced","15":"tag-scrap","16":"tag-starmer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}