英国脱欧，这个国家居然成了最大赢家

在爱尔兰的几个大城市中，不难发现体现出经济志向的迹象。在爱尔兰首都，饱经风霜的圣三一大学正在打造1592年成立以来第一个远离其校园的区域——这个投资10亿欧元、占地5.5英亩（约2.23万平方米）的“创新区”容纳了400家初创公司，旨在将圣三一大学变成欧洲的麻省理工学院或斯坦福大学。1980年就在爱尔兰最南端城市科克设厂的苹果公司去年将员工人数从5000人提升至6000人。爱尔兰经纪服务机构EY-DKM Economic Advisory Services估算，爱尔兰第三大城市利默里克在过去10年中共提交了20亿欧元的规划项目。爱尔兰西海岸城市高威正在开发占地两英亩（约8092平方米）的临水建筑综合体，后者投资1亿欧元，建筑面积37万平方英尺（约3.44万平方米），旨在应对爱尔兰源源不断的写字楼需求。突然之间，爱尔兰成了众多工程吊车的聚集地，当地人曾认为这些庞然大物只会出现在幻想之中。

世界上一些最大银行的高管注意到了这一点。在英国脱欧最终期限到来前，美银美林和巴克莱都把欧盟总部从伦敦搬到了都柏林，以尽量减轻由此受到的冲击；仅巴克莱一家就把自己管理的大约2150亿美元资产转移到了都柏林（两家银行均拒绝就此发表评论）。它们的竞争对手，花旗集团、摩根士丹利、摩根大通和高盛集团尽管会在伦敦保留办事机构，但也都承诺，面对英国的不确定性，它们会扩大在都柏林的业务规模。

几家在爱尔兰有业务的跨国科技公司也披露了增加投资的计划，只是有公司表示这和英国脱欧几乎无关。举例来说，Facebook在爱尔兰的4处分支机构都进行了扩充，现已成为该公司在美国以外的最大业务，而且Facebook还计划今年再聘用1000人，使爱尔兰员工总数超过4000人。谷歌最近在爱尔兰招聘了1000人，还给云计算团队专门找了一处办公场所。两家大型科技企业都参与了爱尔兰历史上一些规模最大的房地产交易；应当注意的是，两家公司也都承诺在伦敦的国王十字地区进行可观的扩张（Facebook和谷歌均拒绝派高管评论此事）。1985年就开始在爱尔兰开展业务的微软完成最近的招聘活动后将招收2200人，其中大多数将进入Leopardstown的微软园区，距都柏林市中心约有7英里（约11.27公里）。

去年，爱尔兰的跨国公司员工人数达到23万人，创历史新高，和480万的全国人口相比已经占了很大一部分。爱尔兰外国投资管理机构——工业发展局的数据显示，因英国脱欧的直接影响而从伦敦转移到都柏林的就业机会将超过4500个。EY-DKM Economic Advisory Services则估算，随着这些岗位的转移，将有1万亿美元资产“逃离”英国。

It’s not hard to find evidence of economic ambition in Ireland’s largest cities. In the Irish capital, the storied Trinity College is building the first unadjoined part of its campus since its founding in 1592: a billion-euro, 5.5-acre, 400-startup “innovation district” with the aim of turning the university into Europe’s MIT or Stanford. Apple—which has been in Cork, on the southern tip of the island, since 1980—expanded its campus in the city last year from 5,000 to 6,000 employees. In Limerick, Ireland’s third-biggest city, 2 billion euros’ worth of planning projects have been submitted over the past decade, according to estimates by EY-DKM Economic Advisory Services. In Galway, on the west coast, a two-acre, 100-million-euro, 370,000-square-foot waterfront complex is under development, a response to continued demand for Irish office space. Suddenly, Ireland has become a nesting ground for a flock of towering beasts once thought to be the stuff of fantasy: construction cranes.

Executives at some of the world’s largest banks have noticed. Ahead of the Brexit deadline, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays moved their EU headquarters from London to Dublin in a bid to minimize disruption; Barclays alone has shifted some $215 billion in asset management to the Irish capital. (Both banks declined to comment on the moves.) Rivals Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs have promised to bulk up their own Dublin operations in the face of U.K. uncertainty, even as they maintain offices in the British capital.

Several multinational tech companies with operations in Ireland have also unveiled plans to deepen their investment, though some say Brexit has little to do with it. Facebook, for example, has expanded its physical footprint in four sites across Ireland—its largest outside the U.S.—and plans to hire 1,000 new employees this year, bringing its total to more than 4,000. Google recently hired 1,000 workers and dedicated a building to its cloud-computing team. Both tech titans were responsible for some of the biggest real estate deals in Irish history; both, it should be noted, have also committed to sizable expansions in London’s Kings Cross district. (Facebook and Google declined to make executives available for comment.) Microsoft, which has operated in Ireland since 1985, will employ 2,200 people after its latest recruitment push, mostly at its campus in Leopardstown, about seven miles from central Dublin.

Last year Ireland counted 230,000 employees of multinational corporations, its highest-ever number and a significant slice of the country’s 4.8 million population. According to the Industrial Development Authority, Ireland’s foreign-investment arm, more than 4,500 jobs will move from London to Dublin as a direct result of Brexit—and with them a sizable chunk of what EY estimates to be a trillion-dollar asset exodus from Britain.