Institutional investors to keep UK holdings stable as Brexit creeps up
A majority of institutional investors plan to keep their holdings of UK assets stable into early 2019 as Brexit negotiations approach a crunch phase, according to a quarterly survey.
The ‘Brexometer’ survey of 101 professional investors by State Street, which manages $2.7 trillion (£2.1 trillion) in assets globally, showed that appetite for increased holdings of UK assets rose to 20.8 per cent, the highest level since the quarterly index began in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016.
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It beats the previous high of 15.5 per cent which was set in Q3 2017.
However, the proportion of investors looking to decrease their holdings of UK assets also rose, from 13.9 per cent in the previous quarter to 19.8 per cent in Q3.
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The survey also showed a growing number of investors anticipating that Brexit would have a major impact on their operating model, with 25.7 per cent saying that the impact would be “significant”.
This is the highest score since the index began, although the overall proportion anticipating any impact is lower at 83.2 per cent than Q1 2018’s high score of 87.3 per cent.