Marmite maker Unilever to move London headquarters to Netherlands
The company employs 7,300 people in the UK and 3,100 in the Netherlands but no jobs will be lost by the move
UNILEVER, the maker Marmite, has announced it will be moving its legal headquarters to Rotterdam, ending almost a century of residency in London.
The consumer goods company, which is the UK's third largest firm, insisted that its 7,300 UK workers and its 3,100 employees in the Netherlands will not be affected by the move.
The firm is behind household names including Marmite, Dove, Magnum, Knorr, Ben & Jerry's and Carte D'Or and employs around 169,000 people around the world.
Up until now Unilever has been based both in the UK and the Netherlands but today the company said it intends to "simplify" from two legal entities into a single one incorporated in Rotterdam.
It added that Unilever will continue to be listed in London, Amsterdam and New York.
Bosses claimed that the move to Rotterdam has "nothing to do with Brexit," but the decision is likely to cause embarrassment for the Government, who is struggling to contain a flow of businesses and their staff to the EU.
British Government officials reportedly met with Unilever to express their concerns that the London headquarters would be axed in favour of the Netherlands, but failed to convince them over the benefits of basing its main offices in the UK.
A Government spokesman said: "Unilever has today shown its long-term commitment to the UK by choosing to locate its two fastest-growing global business divisions in this country, safeguarding 7,300 jobs and £1 billion a year of investment.
"As the company itself has made clear, its decision to transfer a small number of jobs to a corporate HQ in the Netherlands is part of a long-term restructuring of the company and is not connected to the UK's departure from the EU."
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Unilever chairman Marijn Dekkers said: "Our decision to headquarter the divisions in the UK and the Netherlands underscores our long-term commitment to both countries.
"The changes announced today also further strengthen Unilever's corporate governance, creating for the first time in our history a 'one share, one vote' principle for all our shareholders."
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