James Dyson’s personal Brexit: vacuum cleaner mogul moves company HQ to Singapore

Britain may be leaving the European Union, but James Dyson’s company is getting out first.

Billionaire vacuum-cleaner mogul and inventor and prominent Brexiteer James Dyson is moving his company headquarters from Britain to Singapore.

The Dyson company said the move wasn’t related to ongoing Brexit negotiations or an effort to seek lower taxes, according to the Financial Times.

Singapore’s headline rate of corporate tax is 17 percent, two percent lower than in the U.K. The company said it will continue to pay tax in the U.K.

Dyson already manufactures all their products in Asia and about half their profits come from the Asian market, the Times reported. In October 2018, the company announced it was building a factory in Singapore as a manufacturing base for its electric vehicles.

Jim Rowan, a chief executive at the company said the relocation of the company’s headquarters would ensure they were “future-proofed.”

An outspoken Brexit supporter, Dyson was criticized for the move by pro-EU politicians who accused him of “shameless hypocrisy.”

“It’s about time we future-proofed our long-term industrial strategy instead of future-proofing the short-term profits of a select few,” said Rebecca Long-Bailey, the opposition Labour Party’s shadow business secretary.

Rowan said the company would continue to invest in two research and development offices in Wiltshire in the U.K., that currently employ around 4,000 people.

Dyson previously said that Brexit would boost employment in the U.K. “We will create more wealth and more jobs by being outside the EU,” he told the Telegraph.

Dyson has also personally invested in real estate outside the U.K. in recent months.

In November 2018, he bought a six-bedroom penthouse at Zeckendorf Development’s 520 Park Avenue for $73.8 million. [FT] – Decca Muldowney