SCOTTISH Amicable is shutting its headquarters in Glasgow and consolidating the operations into its Craigforth complex, near Stirling.
All but 16 of the 215 staff in its six-storey St Vincent Street building are being offered relocation or a daily bus service to Craigforth, to join the 1300 staff already working there.
The closure is a significant reverse for Glasgow's ambition to remain Scotland's second financial services centre, after Edinburgh. There are worries that Britannia Life is also downgrading its presence in the city, after the recent sudden departure of its managing director, Peter Burdon.
This decision taken, according to Amicable's managing director, Roy Nicolson, because it ``makes good administrative, commercial and financial sense'' to consolidate twin HQs on a single site, will end a 170-year-old headquarters link with Glasgow.
It was announced to shocked staff yesterday afternoon. The new City of Glasgow Council was also informed. Public confirmation will come later today. ``I'm sure even Pat Lally must see that this makes commercial sense,'' said one senior Amicable source.
Scottish Amicable Investment Managers, which moved into separate offices in Grosvenor House opposite Central Station last year and employs more than 200 people, is not affected by the closure decision, which will be completed by October.
Amicable will also retain a small Glasgow regional sales centre to maintain its links with the local independent financial advisers who sell its products.
The mutual insurer is refusing to put a figure on the savings likely to accrue from the rationalisation. It says that, apart from the 16 staff facing redundancy, it wants to take all the rest with it to Stirling.
Already a fleet of 20 buses brings existing staff from a 20-mile radius to Craigforth. Further bus services will be provided for transferred Glasgow staff, at least in the short term. If some staff reject the move, new people will be recruited.
Amicable's current Glasgow headquarters was completed in 1976 and shared, in the early years, with the British National Oil Corporation. Craigforth, a private house and estate, now on the edge of the M9 motorway, was purchased in 1952, ironically as a place of safekeeping for the society's records.
It grew, first as a data processing centre and later as Amicable's main back office. With extensions in 1976, 1986 and again in 1993, it became the main operational centre and increasingly assumed headquarters functions too.
Like other financial services companies, Scottish Amicable is under increasing pressure to deliver its products more and more efficiently. There was a rationalisation of branch administration last year, particularly south of the Border, involving the loss of some 240 jobs.
``The way we do business has changed and we need to be more cost effective,'' said Mr Nicolson.
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