Welcome to your weekly digest of must-read news and knowledge for board directors.

This week, I look at the controversial issue of brass plate HQ relocation threats in light of the FT revealing that the UBS chair has been in talks with the Trump administration about heading stateside.

If you want to catch up with past briefings, please explore the FT Infosys Board Network hub, where you’ll find links to the FT.com articles and research that we’ve referenced in recent weeks and — in the Briefings tab — to the newsletter library.

Send any comments or suggestions to me at andrew.hill@ft.com or Jonathan Moules at jonathan.moules@ft.com.

Thanks for reading.

UBS chair Colm Kelleher has taken a leaf out of Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal by talking to US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent about moving the Swiss bank from Zurich to the US.

The Swiss bank responded to the FT’s scoop this week by repeating that it wanted “to continue to operate successfully as a global bank out of Switzerland”. UBS is, however, fighting the prospect of stricter Swiss capital requirements. Sowing a little Trumpian uncertainty about where it feels at home is one way of grabbing Swiss politicians’ and regulators’ attention.

The threat of relocation is a weapon in every multinational’s armoury. The formal line is always that boards have a fiduciary duty to consider the most suitable place from which to operate. Taxes, takeovers and talent tend to influence where that is.

In reality, those threats do not often materialise. HSBC has been toying with a formal move to Hong Kong for years, but remains in London. When directors do decide on a new head office, often only a brass nameplate moves, while most of the operational staff stay put. Sometimes, too, high-profile exits are reversed. Advertising agency WPP flounced off from London to Dublin in 2008 and then returned four years later when the threat of UK taxes on overseas profits eased.

Companies that move about too easily or too often risk destroying their foundations. Walmart’s strong culture is still fed by its deep roots in Bentonville, Arkansas, whereas some trace Boeing’s decline to the planemaker’s move of HQ from Seattle to Chicago and more recently — and tellingly — close to Washington DC. Still, Swiss politicians need to pay attention to the UBS-US flirtation. There is a chilling precedent in banking. When separatists called into question the future of Quebec as part of Canada in the 1970s, Bank of Montreal moved its operations out to Toronto, never to return, leaving behind just a registered head office.

‌Beijing’s GDP figures have drawn scrutiny for several years but the questions about their authenticity have become increasingly more acute.

My top FT picks

US regulator will permit companies to exclude shareholder proposals from proxies The Securities and Exchange Commission could reshape American corporate governance procedures by making it harder for investors to seek changes. UK cyber ransom ban risks collapse of essential services Companies and security groups are warning that the British government’s proposed measure to curtail further high profile hacking incidents is unlikely to stop such cyber attacks. It is time for a rethink on board tenure The ‘nine-year’ limit for UK directors should not be seen as a hard rule, Kimberley Lewis, head of active ownership at Schroders, writes. Apple intensifies succession planning for CEO Tim Cook The iPhone maker’s board is preparing for its longtime leader to step down as early as next year.

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