Companies in Iowa have muted reaction to Brexit, state will watch effect on currency, trade

Large multinational companies with operations in the Corridor and the Iowa Economic Development Authority are taking a cautious approach to Thursday's vote by citizens of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

Debi Durham, Iowa Economic Development Authority director, was not available for comment. But Tina Hoffman, IEDA marketing and communications director, said the agency does not expect to see an immediate effect from the Brexit decision.

'There are so many questions, and we think it's going to take some time for things to shake out with trade agreements,” Hoffman said. 'The one thing that we're going to have to watch is the value of the currency.

'Without a lot of answers at this time, we're just going to watch and see how everything shakes out.”

Iowa companies doing business in the European Union have been able to negotiate a single trade agreement. Hoffman said Thursday's referendum vote likely will require a change.

'If a company has a distributor in Germany that they use for all of Europe, they are going to have to create a separate trade agreement with a distributor in Great Britain,” she said, 'All of these things will take time and have some impact. What this is, we really don't know.”

Hoffman said IEDA and the governor's office do not have any trade missions planned to Europe in the immediate future.

Rockwell Collins, the Cedar Rapid-based avionics, communications and information-management services provider, has 2,000 employees in the EU, with offices in England, France and Germany.

'As a global company with operations and customers throughout the world, we anticipate that the United Kingdom's vote to exit the European Union will have only a limited impact on Rockwell Collins in the long-term,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

'We will collaborate closely with the governments and others concerned in order to ensure the smoothest possible transitions for our employees and customers in the UK and elsewhere. We will, of course, also continue to monitor and evaluate the circumstances in the weeks and months ahead.”

Jackie Anderson, a spokeswoman for Archer Daniels Midland, which has a major corn refining operations in Cedar Rapids, had a similar response.

'We are optimistic that the impact on ADM over time will be limited, and that we will be able to manage any such impact,” Anderson said.

Representatives of Ingredion, formerly Penford and with a plant in southwest Cedar Rapids, and PepsiCo, owner of the Quaker Oats plant in downtown Cedar Rapids, were contacted for this story but declined to comment.