Forget Frankfurt, I’m moving to Basildon

Since I first met the Deutsche Börse guys, I’ve found it challenging to work out where they are.

Y’see, last year I went to Börsenstraße in Frankfurt, as you would assume that the Borse would be in the street named after it.

Well, it used to be ...

... but not anymore.

Now the Deutsche Börse is in Neue Börsenstraße, Frankfurt.

It’s a journey of only five kilometres, but it does mean that the new Börse building is not in Frankfurt itself.

Nevertheless, it’s new and modern and has a nice big foyer for hosting conference days, like the one I attended this week.

They moved here ten years ago, and it comprises eight five-storey buildings in the shape of a fan, providing almost 50,000m² of office space.

Pretty darned impressive ay?

Nope.

For tax reasons, the Deutsche Börse is on the move yet again, and will switch to Eschborn a little later this year.

Eschborn?

Where’s that?

Eschborn is another hop, skip and jump from the Frankfurt-Hausen suburb, where they are now, and about 12 kilometres from the centre of Frankfurt.

According to the guys at the Deutsche Börse, this will save them around €50 million a year between tax savings – Frankfurt’s quite punitive tax-wise – and building rental and running costs.

Great.

The new building has 20,000 m² of office space and views of the Frankfurt skyline and the surrounding Taunus hills.

Here it is:

 

 

And lots more pictures here.

Give it a few more decades and they'll be in Bonn!

The thing is that, to me, it’s like Frankfurt is no longer a financial capital if its Exchange is no longer there.

It would be like the London Stock Exchange being in Basildon, Essex, but that’s not going to happen is it?

p.s. June 21st Financial Times headline - Colt, Verizon, euNetworks picked for NYSE Basildon: NYSE Euronext are to open a new data centre in Basildon, Essex with a floor space of 315,000 square feet, or about four soccer pitches.