According to various reports over the Web, Infineon is considering opportunities to relocate its corporate headquarters from Germany to other countries due to very high taxes. The most-likely country to establish the new headquarters is Switzerland, though, the company also considering South East Asia and the USA.

Ulrich Schumacher, the CEO of the Germany-based memory maker plans to complete all negotiations with tax authorities in six months and offer concrete proposals for the location of the new headquarters by the end of the year. According to various reports, the structure of the company may also be changed and currently several models are being reviewed.

Schumacher said Switzerland ranks at the top of the list of European countries, “as many other large groups have already moved there”, SiliconStrategies reports. The second choice is Southeast Asia, in particular Singapore, which is close to important purchaser markets. According to Schumacher the United States is the least likely of the three options, but would offer the best access to capital markets.

The company expects to save several hundred million euros by relocating and hopes this will help it secure jobs in Germany in the long term. About 300 managers will be affected by the changes, according to the report.

To tell you the truth, it is a very interesting piece of information, as Infineon’s decision may open a new trend. Earlier all companies moved manufacturing to Asian and even African countries to save money on labour. Now Infineon has close ties with several Asian memory makers, but still has a number of facilities in Europe. It does not seem that those fabs will be shut down in future, but will continue to operate. Currently the company considers the possibility to move execution to Asia to save on taxes; if it decides to perform the HQ relocation, it will eventually mean that not a European company called Infineon owns something in Asia, but an Asian semiconductor giant called Infineon will have its property in Europe :-)