A Bermuda-based investment company is upping sticks and moving its core business to Dublin, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

Berco, which was set up 50 years ago by business tycoon Sir Harold Mitchell, is leaving a skeleton staff of one in Hamilton, letting go of two Bermudian staff and moving the other five core staff to new offices in Europe.

The managing director of Berco, which is listed as an international company, denied rumours circulating that the company was leaving because of dissatisfaction with Government policies.

Ian Buchanan said: "We are moving to Dublin because our core business is based in Europe and we want to be close to our investments." When asked about whether the move was motivated because of political reasons, Mr. Buchanan said: "That is not the reason behind the move. We have in the last couple of years found our business in Europe was continuing to grow and we feel we will have more control over our investments in Dublin."

The company, which deals mainly in the management and administration of European investments, is based in the Fidelity Building on Crow Lane.

They expect to be moving out in the New Year and into offices in Dublin, and are currently looking for smaller offices in Bermuda.

The company will remain incorporated in Bermuda, and the single support staff left in the office will be administrative. Mr. Buchanan said he and his other staff expected to be leaving by the new year and had already secured offices in Dublin at Meorin Square. Mr. Buchanan said the company was likely to be taking on more support staff in Dublin locally.

The business was set up in Bermuda after World War II when Sir Harold Mitchell left the UK and moved to the Island. He set up Berco, which ran from the offices which now house Partner Re in Pits Bay Road. Sir Harold, who bought Marshall's Island in the Great Sound for ?,000 in the late 1940s, had business interests around the world which included coal mining, farming and oil.

He also had estates in Jamaica, Honduras, Portugal, Fiji, Brazil and Guatemala as well as mining interests in Canada and the United States.

He left the United Kingdom after his mines and a railway he owned were nationalised after the war, and during his life refused to keep any of his money in the country. After his death, the family fortune was passed on to his daughter Mary Jane Mitchell-Green.

However, her untimely death from breast cancer at an early age meant that the fortune was passed on to her husband Peter Green and their two children.

Mr. Green now runs the Mitchell empire including Berco, and lives part of the year on Marshall's Island, but retains a flat on the top floor of the PartnerRe building.