[Closed] Confused by the rationale behind the move

I’m going to give something back

Have you heard him talk? No chance.

He loves the 'man who started in a shed' shtick but he's in it for as much money as he can get and he's not got any loyalty to his UK staff (or even the UK it seems despite his Brexit stance).

Does he hate the UK.

Well he supports Brexit so yes, yes he does.

"Brexit, Brilliant! Take control, yada, yada, yada"

...

"Hmm, it's all going to go to poo isn't it?"

...

"Bye!"

Singapore has just signed a free trade deal with the EU.

Is the electric car division staying here?

So why move to Singapore? Does he have a special place in his heart for it? Does he hate the UK. Maybe he has a pathological hatred of spitting.

He’s a Brexit supporter therefore has no loyalty to the UK.

I’d say he’s reverted to type, wouldn’t you?

It was onyl ever going to be r&D (£16 million government grant to spend before he can move the r&d too).

He's off anyway...

I’m going to give something back

Some chance! He's just another greedy, tax-dodging, narcissistic sociopath.

Depressingly, they seem to be very much in the ascendency nowadays

Is the electric car division staying here?

Plant already being built. In Singapore.

He’s just another greedy, tax-dodging, narcissitic sociopath.

I would suggest you're being overly generous.

The rich and powerful Brexiteers love Singapore. I don't mean the Brexiteers of some backwater in the fens, terrified of the Latvian veg-pickers or the people of Stoke, baffled by the decline of their potteries, but the Rees-Moggs and the Dysons. They worship at the alter of deregulation and their model is Singapore. No spitting, no chewing-gum and above all no unions. Ideally no environmental limitations and all that other stuff that the EU is so good at too. Result - kerching.

but he’s in it for as much money as he can get

But why. That's the thing just don't get. How could anyone be that loaded and think they need to be more loaded.

God how depressing

^^pretty much sums it up for me too

He doesn’t need to earn more.

You are misssing the point so eloquently put by Nico ^^

One simple explanation. Get your head around it and then it's totally logical:

He is a greedy, hypocritical ****.

Brexit may have given him a shove to move the headquarters there but the main production factories have been in Singapore and Asia since 2002. Back then he said it was to increase cost effectiveness and to be closer to suppliers... The company pretty much doubled its profits in the first year after the move

He’s not moving to Singapore.

He’s not moving anything to Singapore.

He’s setting up a brand new production facility in Singapore for a brand new product line. So no moving of anything.

Singapore has highly skilled labour needed for the production of the electric cars he’s developing IN THE UK and was, no doubt, highly incentivised to go there by the Singaporean government. You know, like the huge incentives the Slovakian government gave to JLR to persuade them to set up their new Range Rover production line in Slovakia.

But despite my sarcasm this is fine in my mind. It’s a global world and if you’re Producing products that are sold all over the world, like Dyson, JLR, Toyota and anybothter global company, It makes complete sense to have a global presence to be close to suppliers, skill base and markets.

So nothing new here at all.

He’s not moving anything to Singapore.

Apart from the company HQ, obvs.

And the r&d, and the electric car division obvz.

You are right on one point, the massive incentives handed out. Not unusual for governments to offer “brown envelope” deals to large corporations is it..

Eh, nudge nudge-wink wink.

The problem I have is that Dyson is arguably the manufacturing face of Brexit.

Doesn't matter how many other UK manufacturers (ones that actually make stuff in the UK) make the point that Brexit is stupid, Dyson is used as the example of how Brexit is awesome.

So for Dyson to relocate his HQ to Singapore sends an interesting message. It'll be interesting to see how the likes of the Daily Mail report this. No doubt it'll be awesome.

I despise Brexiteers.

It’ll be interesting to see how the likes of the Daily Mail report this.

My guess is that the f***ers won’t bother reporting it.

Heard this on the news driving home earlier.

Another nail in the coffin of Brexit I reckon.

Nope. Brexit will happen.
It's a nail in the coffin of Britain's manufacturing & enginereering base

My guess is that the f***ers won’t bother reporting it.

They have and not in a positive light.
Remember that the mails management changed last year and the new bloke is pro remain unlike Dacre the semi London elitist (only semi since he has a couple of country retreats including a grouse moor). Whilst it hasnt gone full remain its toned down a lot.
Good to see Dyson following the finest tradition of the brexit elites by making sure he has an out.

The * can * off.

Goodness. Seems like I'm not alone in my views......

Brexit will happen. It’s a nail in the coffin of Britain’s manufacturing & enginereering base

Wrong metaphor, or at least the coffin was the 70's and 80's and the nails were overly militant unions.

Brexit is the trebuchet (an engineering marvel, look at what the British can achieve!) we're going to use to fling the festering corpse of British manufacturing industries into the sea.

He doesn’t need to earn more.

He hadn’t needed to earn more for decades, but when you or I might down tools the moment we’ve got a few mill in the bank, People like Dyson (good and bad) only want more, it’s not greed per-se, they love making money.

Ah, hadn't read the HQ bit, thought it was just another ignorant Dyson slagging off. My bad.

Well I guess alot of companies are HQ'd in non-domestic countries...lots of airlines are head quartered in Ireland, HSBC is head quartered in London. So I suspect its a paperwork exercise. Difficult to say without knowing his long term plans for the company. You can only go so far making vacuum cleaners and hairdryers. He's probably diversifying his business and re-focusing it on electric cars and SE Asia is where EV's are at. The workforce are more skilled in modern tech than the UK, more investors out that way...and he's going to need investors...alot of them judging by Tesla's exploits. He might be planning a tie up with another business based out in that part of the world, so having the HQ there might help there....or it might be a cynical ploy to exploit a cheaper tax regime - I hope not but could understand it. We'll see.

Forget vacuum cleaners, Dyson's in the business of innovation, inventing things, and the UK is not the best place in the world for that. He wouldn't be the first British inventor who has turned to other countries to make progress. British engineering history is littered with British inventors who have taken their inventions elsewhere.

Point of order - British manufacturing is successful! Provided we focus on what we are good at (not cheap and cheerful/pile it high/sell it cheap).
Successive governments may have ignored this and the likes of Dyson offshored manufacturing while grabbing R and D grants but some companies have succeeded.

Unfortunately Brexit may sink them (lets hope not - perhaps it'll all be a great unicorn filled future).

On a vaguely related note - I've just had a look on DM's website following dissonance's post - WOW - there is a lot of anti-Brexit sentiment in the comment section! Although one poster seems to think a bunch of Guardian readers have hijacked it 🙂

British engineering history is littered with British inventors who have taken their inventions elsewhere.

You are probably right ( I don’t know) but I do get the feeling that British industrial heritage has only ever looked at the immediate or short term view, hence the lack of massive investment in manufacturing here.

And that my friend is very very sad.

We seem to have an intangible reluctance to view optimistically, to seek new and fantastic opportunities. More akin to liking the lack of change, same old, same old.

Its not like we don’t have the skill base, we have some of the most talented people in the UK... skills called for around the globe, yet why is it we seem to loose out on technological advancing industries?

I’m baffled.

I’m not surprised.

I am sad about it.

10% of me wants Dyson and his cohorts to **** off, the other 90% of me thinks he’s doing the right thing for his business model. Shame 50% of that attitude couldn’t stay here in the UK.

It’s a nail in the coffin of Britain’s manufacturing & enginereering base

You did read the actual story didn't you? So you'd know that they're not taking more than a few very senior jobs away from the UK? Just moving the designated HQ.

But it's terrible PR for Dyson and for Brexit, because the kind of ill-informed, easily swayed berks who voted for it in the first place won't bother to look beyond the unflattering headline.

Unless of course Dyson are lying when they say UK jobs are safe. But a prominent Brexit backer wouldn't lie, surely?

You did read the actual story didn’t you? So you’d know that they’re not taking more than a few very senior jobs away from the UK? Just moving the designated HQ.

It's yet another part of the company moving. He's already moved existing manufacturing years ago, EV manufacturing is going to be in Singapore too.

The workforce are more skilled in modern tech than the UK

Not convinced. Designing a car requires a degree in Engineering, building it doesn't. The competitive advantage of having a skilled workforce is that it makes those skills cheap, if everyone has an engineering degree then competition for the jobs keeps wages low. That's why I did Chemical Engineering, deeply unsexy (compared to Mechanical, Electrical, Aeronautical, and pretty much any other branch), but pays more (and unfortunately cyclical and outsourced to Thailand and india, but I'm not bitter...).

Surely this ship sailed years ago?

Yet another company like Panasonic and Sony that moved its (small but significant) UK manufacturing base away to suit the changing demands of a market economy. All whilst we were members of the EU.

So get angry at the Brexit if you want but get more angry at market forces and those that implement it.

I'm with Nico & Harry the spider on this one.
I know of an enterprise in Singapore which is subsidised enormously by their government. The same enterprise here was quietly closed, with job losses ,to ensure the Singapore site had "continuing workflow".
grrr.

A vast amount of rich brexiteers are moving their money/ business abroad. Johnson,Rees mogg,etc. They know the country's going to s£*it brexit. But they're loaded so losing the NHS , schools , human & animal rights etc won't affect them one bit 🙄

Singapore has a free trade deal with the EU.

Rachel

Singapore has no inheritance tax..

Probably why he's been buying up so much farm land (also exempt)...

We best get used to Singapore. The Brexiteers wet dream is to replicate its union-free, regulation-free, low tax template here, once free from that pesky EU regulation.

IIRC a large part of Dyson's enthusiasm for brexit was that it would make it easier to hire (cheaper) Chinese engineers. From Singapore, that will be even easier. I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope for Malmesbury in the longer or even medium term.

Singapore, close to China, cheaper than UK. Obvious choice for more money. That doesn't make it a nice one, but he's not fussed about that!

The FT news podcast explains the whole thing.

https://www.ft.com/ft-news-podcast

This link won't help much but the podcast is available from your usual podcast supplier without any password, subscription etc.

The TL;DR is:

-Only two roles moving.
-The rest of the 4,000 odd UK staff will remain in the UK.
-Dyson's tax payments in the UK will remain largely unchanged at £70mill.

Multiple reasons offered for the 'move'. The one that rang true for me was that they're about to invest heavily in Car research/manufacture which is going to decimate their bottom line. In the UK, even as a private company, they have to report their profits (or lack of profits), in Singapore they don't.

"Too many facts spoil the wrath."

Some chance! He’s just another greedy, tax-dodging, narcissistic sociopath.

Third highest UK payer of income tax last year at 127.8 million. So one of your claims looks a little suspect, though I suspect not all of them.