"New business inquiries looking up" - Jersey Finance chief

Friday 30 January 2015

The head of Jersey Finance has told an audience that there are several firms lining up with inquiries about coming to Jersey.

Geoff Cook, the chief executive of the marketing and promotional body, said at Jersey Finance’s 2014 Review that they were also targeting the US for the first time in a long while.

Although figures released in the Business Tendency Survey cast doubt about the future employment and profit prospects of the sector, Mr Cook said that things were looking good.

He said: “We do have a healthy pipeline of new business inquiries. If you ring a major law firm and ask how busy they are, they would say they are really busy.

"There is a surge of new business. Look at the JEP and there is quite a lot of finance jobs in there, and that is a strong indicator.

“We have got interest from asset managers and fund managers and we know that private equity groups are looking to grow here, and we have got some interest from overseas banks.

“We will soon be commencing some promotion in the US – we think that there is an opportunity to encourage US asset managers to come here and use Jersey as a platform for investing into Europe. We think there could be a good bridging offer from Jersey there.”