Standard Life may relocate business to England if Scottish independence goes ahead

Standard Life plans to relocate funds, staff, and operations to England should the Scottish people vote for independence.

17:06 27 February 2014

On Thursday, Standard Life’s chairman Gerry Grimstone, confirmed plans of moving operations from Scotland to England should the Scottish public vote for independence.

Stating that he was acting in order to protect the interests of the stakeholders, Grimstone said: "If anything were to threaten this, we will take whatever action we consider necessary - including transferring parts of our operations from Scotland - in order to ensure continuity and to protect the interests of our stakeholders".

David Nish, the firm’s chief executive, has confirmed that the company has  started work to establish additional registered companies to operate outside Scotland, into which we could transfer parts of our operations if necessary".

"This is a precautionary measure to ensure continuity of our businesses' competitive position and to protect the interests of our stakeholders."

Standard Life, which has had headquarters in Scotland for 189 years, is the first major company to warn about the potential risk of staying in the country in the event of a vote for independence.

Standard Life is the UK's biggest provider of defined contribution pensions and self-invested pension plans, and has around £240bn of assets under management.