AMIDST the occasional negative comments within the Isle of Man’s finance sector, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Island is still a very successful and thriving economic community.

That is the message from the managing director of Barclays Wealth, Greg Ellison, speaking in Douglas this morning (Tuesday).

He was speaking in response to the recent negative media coverage of the closure of the Irish Permanent’s office in the Island with the loss of fourteen jobs. The story has made media headlines in a number of publications, linked with some negative comments about the Isle of Man’s economy.

However, Greg Ellison said that the Isle of Man should be proud of its performance and that the situation with companies such as Barclays Wealth was a very positive one.

“Of course, it is not good to hear of the closure of the Irish Permanent offices, but that decision was taken by the company’s head office so that they could concentrate their efforts on their own domestic market and was not a reflection of the performance of the Isle of Man operation.

“I’m hopeful that there will also be opportunities for their staff to find new positions within the Island’s finance sector and that the investors who were with Irish Permanent will also keep their money on the Isle of Man.

“But the story of the Isle of Man’s finance sector is a good one and this is a good time to remind people of that fact. Here at Barclays Wealth we are in the middle of recruiting 27 new staff to our credit operations team, a decision which is part of a five-year strategy to further enhance our individual personal service to clients.”

Ellison is also delighted that Barclays has managed to recruit a number of very high profile senior finance sector individuals to its team in recent times, including Caroline Cornish from HSBC and Geoff Gelling from Isle of Man Bank.

Barclays is the single biggest banking employer in the Isle of Man, by some considerable margin, and is the only major bank in the United Kingdom not to have needed massive government financial bail-outs to survive the recession of the last two years.

Barclays has remained profitable each quarter and has not stopped investing inwardly during the last two years when most other banks were retracting. We have invested in our infrastructure, technology and in emerging markets such as Asia."

He added, “Our focus is on our clients in everything we do, which is the precise reason for the 5-year investment scheme. Our clients are at the centre of everything we do.

“There have been some negative comments recently, and the Isle of Man is facing plenty of challenges and there may well be some more to face after next week’s UK first budget by the coalition government. But it’s not all doom and gloom and no one should ever discount the Manx people, their resilience and their ability to survive.

“I think that it’s important to send out good messages about how the Isle of Man and its people and its businesses are facing today’s challenges.”

Photo: Greg Ellison - "It's not all

doom and gloom" (Bill Dale)