Institutional Asset Manager Newsletter 01.11.24

New industrial revolution for the UK

Institutional Asset Manager’s editor, Gill Wadsworth, quoted Vanessa Havard-Williams, Chair of the Transition Finance Market Review, this week. Havard-Williams says: "The industrial revolution needed to deliver the energy transition is a one in two-hundred-year event, and it presents significant opportunities, socially, environmentally and economically. The UK has the infrastructure, market and ambition to succeed, leveraging its capability as a commercial, financial and civil society leader."
This comes on the back of this week’s budget in the UK, which, unsurprisingly, has met with mixed response. The IMF might have hailed Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ ‘sustainable’ tax rises but companies facing increased National Insurance contributions for their staff were not so sanguine.
Meanwhile Gus Morison, CEO and founder of the Hedge Fund and Family Office Network AYU, has commented on the news that Britain will increase capital gains tax on the performance fees that private equity fund managers make when assets are sold, known as "carried interest", to 32 per cent. "It’s evident from this budget that the government lacks a comprehensive understanding of the factors required to create an environment that attracts entrepreneurs and nurtures entrepreneurship. Their lack of business experience or enterprise is apparent in their actions, which is both embarrassing and concerning," Morison says.
The government might be a bit busy at the moment, but Wadsworth also reported on a global coalition of investors representing approximately USD2.5 trillion in assets under management, which is urging governments to "take ambitious policy and regulatory action to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss".
Five pension funds – AP7 (Sweden); CDPQ (Canada); the Church of England Pensions Board (UK); HESTA (Australia); and USS (UK) – are leading the initiative which calls on governments to set new national targets; implement mandatory disclosure on nature for companies; establish regulation that addresses the five drivers of biodiversity loss; and develop and scale financial mechanisms for nature.
These and other subjects will be under discussion at London-based responsible investment conference, the RAO Global Symposium. This code, ETF20, will gain you a 20 per cent discount on tickets to attend RAO Global’s symposium on 21st November in London. The event details are here.

Gill Wadsworth, Editor, Institutional Asset Manager
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