The amount held in UK shares by most managed portfolios, which seek to provide an international spread of investments (as they should), has reduced pretty significantly in recent years. What has kept it at even its current-reduced levels is the number of truly global companies which are still trade their shares on the London stock exchange; and the exposure they give our FTSE 100 to world markets. Of those, for better or worse, Shell is the largest, followed by other household names such as AstraZeneca, HSBC, Unilever, BP with (see below) SJP propping them up at number 100. Were Shell to move to the US, which it, or at least its boss is threatening to do, this may indeed be an acceleration of an already slippery slope towards financial backwater-dom. The post-Brexit talk of making the City a ‘Singapore on Thames’ (giving big companies and others tax breaks to stay or base themselves here) seems to have disappeared into the ether. And while, yes, we are still a great country, the country of Harry Potter, David Beckham’s left foot, etc., we can no longer rely on past financial and other glories to stay that way. I’d say.
“Natwest and trio of private equity firms vie for Quilter”
In the 80s and 90s, banks and building societies bought life insurance, pension companies and fund managers, took on lots of financial advisers and sold financial products by the bucket-load, by means both fair and foul, to their customers.
