- IHS Markit CEO Lance Uggla told BI his company remains committed to the UK.
- He thinks the country remains a great place for startups despite Brexit.
- His main concern is access to talent after the UK leave the EU.
LONDON - The CEO of market data company IHS Markit says his business remains committed to the UK despite Brexit, and that he believes the country remains a good location for startups.
Lance Uggla told Business Insider: "IHS Markit, we're a UK-headquartered, tax headquartered company here. We have offices throughout Europe and, regardless of Brexit, we'll be here running our company. I don't see any barriers to us offering our services globally."
Speaking to BI at a conference in London, he added: "If I was going to re-start Markit, I would start it here."
Uggla, who is Canadian, started Markit in 2003 from a barn in St Albans, near London. He led the business to a $4.3 billion listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 2014 and a merger with data provider IHS in 2016. The combined group is worth close to $20 billion.
Uggla was speaking to Business Insider at the Innovate Finance Global Summit, a two-day fintech conference showcasing the UK as a location for innovative businesses.
Uggla said: "London's a great place to do this because you're surrounded by financial market participants - they're all here. It's so global."
He said the UK's timezone, language, its legal system, and access to European talent all add to the country's appeal.
Access to skilled European workers is in doubt after Britain's exit from the European Union but Uggla said he believes businesses will still be able to hire good staff.
"I don't know what it will look like post-Brexit," he said. "But I still think that if you're a great company, you can attract top talent because they want to work for the company. I think London's a great place to live - good schools, good environment, good health system, good education system.
"This is an attractive place to be headquartered and I don't think that's changing."
Uggla said it is "business as usual" at IHS Markit, but added: "Of course we have to look at Brexit strategically and make sure from a corporate perspective that we don't have any single points of failure because of Brexit, but the only one we have to take into consideration I think is: does it impact any of our employees, existing, and will it impact the ability to attract and recruit new employees in the future?"
He added: "Personally, I don't see that as a barrier for us because if we want to hire someone from Canada today, or someone from Japan or Australia in London, you go through your normal procedures and you hire them. They can't just walk across the street with a passport."