SWEDEN/UK – The London office of SEB Invest, the asset management arm of Swedish financial group, SEB, is to close as part of the company’s strategy to centralise the management if its fund management operations from its offices in Stockholm.

The London office has 12 members of staff who will all be given the opportunity to relocate, says SEB Invest press officer, Anna Selberg in Stockholm. “The decision to close the London office in order to centralise the management of our fund management operations in Stockholm and not the other way round stems from the fact that the majority of SEB Invest’s directors are here in Sweden, even though a larger volume of asset management business is actually conducted out of London,” she comments.

Selberg adds that the move will take some time to finalise and that it will help the company remain efficient as the markets open up. “We are now dealing in a global market place. Re-centralising the management in this way allows greater efficiency, both financially and operationally.”

She says that the move is not indicative of a wider downsizing operation and that SEB Invest’s other European offices in Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Helsinki, as well as its New York office and research centre, are not affected.

The SEB Group currently has some SKr816bn (€88.3bn) in assets under management as well as a retail network spanning 630 branches throughout Sweden, Germany and the Baltic countries.

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