Leaving London too taxing for many traders, says Tullett Prebon boss

Terry Smith, chief executive of the world's second largest inter-dealer broker, expects some of his staff to leave but said a lot were dissuaded by the difficulty of relocating before 6 April, when the 50% tax rate is introduced.

"There's at least another month's work to go on people moving overseas," he said.

"It's not any easy matter. People are looking at having to get rid of houses in this country and accept that they won't be coming back to visit their families.

"Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs has also got tough making it clear that people who move must have a foreign contract and that they cannot come back to the UK for business purposes. Despite that some of our people are still interested."

Tullett was the first major London financial firm to go public with its intentions when in December it said it would help any of its 800 employees in the capital move to Switzerland, Singapore or the US to avoid the 50% top rate.

Smith said last year produced a "reasonably good set of figures" for Tullett with revenues virtually unchanged at £948 million with pre-tax profits 1% higher at £157 million.

This was despite the defection of 77 staff to rival BCG in the US with other poaching in London and Hong Kong. Smith said the departures accounted for 6% of the firm's revenues. He is taking legal action in all three countries with the London court ruling likely in the next week.

For the first two months of the year revenues are running 5% lower than a year ago but Smith expects this to improve, particularly during the second half, and as the defectors are replaced.

He is also less worried than some in his world about the threat to business posed by regulators forcing banks either to split off their proprietary trading arms or, at least, put up greater capital to back risk taking.

"We are two and half years into this whole business of tighter regulation and nothing much has happened yet," he said.

"I suspect not much will happen in the future. It requires a degree of clear thinking and international co-operation that I have not seen as yet."

The dividend for the year goes up 18% to 15p a share.