Exclusive: meet the companies who’ll profit off Brexit. Story w/ @LibbyCherry98 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Context: the U.K. govt has confirmed there’s a wave of red tape coming due to Brexit, trade deal or not. Especially 400 million extra customs declarations annually, due to leaving the EU’s customs union 2/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Avg cost of customs declaration = £32.50, if you employ a customs agent to do it for you. So that’s ~£13bn extra cost on U.K.-EU trade. This is a permanent cost companies will have to pay every year 3/
The U.K. has tried to play down this cost so far. In Feb, Brexit negotiation David Frost called it a one-off cost - but it’s not. You’ll have to pay these costs every time you try to trade with the EU 4/ reaction.life/david-frost-sp… 
But one man’s cost is another man’s revenue. So enter the customs specialists. Take AEB, a privately-held German software company. For £2000/mth, they’ll process 25,000 declarations for a company annually 5/
Their UK managing director told me they’ve seen a 5x increase in inquiries in recent weeks, and they’re already expecting a 2000% increase in the # of declarations they process each year 6/
What’s going on here? In short, companies are having to spend money on red tape that they’d otherwise invest in R&D, their employees etc. But there are still winners 7/
Tech will be needed because of a chronic shortage of human customs brokers to fill out the forms. Govt needs 50,000, but is way off the target and coronavirus has hampered training 9/ google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bloo…
See the full story and more analysis on Bloomberg. And hats off to @LibbyCherry98 for some cracking reporting ends/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
