Former aide to Gordon Brown joins UK exodus abroad to UAE despite running FTSE 100 events firm

A FTSE 100 boss who was once a top Labour adviser has joined the exodus of wealthy business figures from the UK.

Lord Stephen Carter, the £5.5m a year chief executive of events company Informa, has become resident in the United Arab Emirates.

He is the latest in a series of wealthy individuals to have upped sticks for new homes overseas, some of them citing the increasingly punishing tax regime under Labour.

However, Informa said the move was for business reasons – with Carter one of a number of its top team who have gone to live abroad over the past year and the company enjoying strong growth in the region.

Carter, who served as chief of strategy to Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and later head of regulator Ofcom, has also retired from the House of Lords. Members of the chamber must be UK resident for tax purposes.

Moving to the UAE from the UK is likely to bring tax advantages. But the extent to which Carter will benefit was not clear according to the Financial Times, which first reported the move.

Last year he was paid £5.5 million, up from £4.2 million the year before.

He is not the only boss of a top UK firm to have lived overseas while running the company. Pascal Soriot, chief executive of drugs giant AstraZeneca – the FTSE 100’s biggest firm – lives in Australia.

Informa pointed out that the Middle East is a key growth market – with the UK today representing less than 5 per cent of its revenues, compared with 43 per cent in North America and 36 per cent in India, the Middle East and Asia.

The company said: ‘Informa has grown fourfold over the last decade, becoming an increasingly international business. The operating management are spending their time where the market is and where the growth is.’

It was understood that Carter is expected to remain abroad for two years. He has led Informa since 2013 making him one of the FTSE’s longest serving bosses.

Chief operating officer Patrick Martell has moved to New York temporarily and Gary Nugent, another top executive, has relocated to Boston on a longer term basis, the FT reported.

It is not the first example of Informa’s top bosses decamping from the UK.

Earlier this year, the entire board upped sticks for the French Riviera to hold the company’s annual meeting at a five-star hotel in Nice – making it an online-only event for any UK-based shareholders unable to stump up for the trip.

Analysis earlier this year from Bloomberg found that more than 4,400 directors of UK businesses have left since Labour came to power.

Much of the exodus has been attributed to the scrapping of non-dom status – which allowed some people to live in Britain but remain non-domiciled for tax purposes.

The change was introduced by the last Conservative government but Labour has gone further by ending a loophole allowing non-doms to continue to pay zero inheritance tax.

Wealthy individuals leaving the UK include steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Aston Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris.