Firms move HQs out of Catalonia

Madrid

Nearly 1 200 companies of all sizes have shifted their legal headquarters out of Catalonia to other parts of Spain since the region held a banned independence referendum, Spain’s commercial registrar said yesterday.

Between October 2, the day after the contested vote, and October 19 a total of 1 185 companies have relocated hoping to minimise instability, according to figures published by the Commercial Registries of Spain. The peak was reached on Thursday as 268 companies shifted their headquarters out of Catalonia.

Spain’s central government announced that day that it would start seizing some of the Catalan regional government’s powers after the region’s leader declared he could declare independence.

During these three weeks only 52 companies set up shop in Catalonia, a region that accounts for about one-fifth of Spain’s economic output and is home to around half-a-million firms.

A survey showed about 35% of firms said the crisis over independence push has had a negative economic impact on them and 19% said they have frozen their investments or intend to.

About two percent of the companies said they had changed banks in recent weeks, without specifying if it was from a bank based in Catalonia to one elsewhere in Spain. –