Sweden's Vinge calls time on London presence
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Swedish firm Vinge has closed its London office after deciding not to renew the lease on its New Bond Street office after it expired on 19 October.
According to Michael Wigge, the firm’s Stockholm-based managing partner, the decision to depart London was taken more than a year ago.
“The rationale for having an office 20 years ago when we marketed ourselves as an international firm was to establish the Vinge trademark, but now we have an established brand name, and the type of business we do today is different, so the necessity to have a physical presence in London just isn’t there anymore,” he said.
“We’ve shifted in the type of business we do and the way business is being done and we don’t need the office to attract business from London. It was good for recruitment, but we’ve found the solution to this in our secondment programmes with magic and silver circle firms.”
The London office was already in operation in 1983 when the merger between the four Swedish firms out of which Vinge was created took place.
The firm has been scaling back its London presence over the past two years, with the office becoming representative rather than a working practice.
As well as four offices in Sweden, Vinge also has a presence in Brussels, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
