Chemicals giant Ineos is moving back to the UK after six years in Switzerland
Chemicals giant Ineos is moving back to the UK after basing its global headquarters in Switzerland for six years.
The firm’s billionaire founder Jim Ratcliffe told the Daily Mail: “We will finish up back in the UK within the next three years. We are Brits aren’t we? It’s where we started and it’s where our hearts lie.
“It was necessary for us to move to Switzerland a few years ago, but now, without question, we have been gravitating back to the UK.”
Ineos – Britain’s biggest private company – left the UK in 2010 for Rolle, just outside Geneva, cutting £100m from its annual tax bill in the process. Ratcliffe had clashed with Gordon Brown’s government, which would not let Ineos put off a £350m VAT payment.
Ineos currently employs 4,000 people in the UK across seven sites, and its presence is set to increase over the coming years. The company announced two years ago that it would be putting £640m into shale gas exploration in the UK.
In December, the UK government awarded Ineos fracking licences covering 700,000 acres of the North West of England, a move Ratcliffe hailed as “the start of the shale and gas revolution that will transform manufacturing in the UK”.
“The UK government has demonstrated it is determined to move forward with this exciting new industry,” he said.
The new headquarters in Knightsbirdge will have the UK’s largest office gym, which will take up an entire floor of the office, according to the Daily Mail.