Our Weekly Newsletter
Across Instinctif Partners’ Financial Services team, we are always keeping an eye on the key developments taking place across the sector to evaluate their impact on the many businesses we work with. Here we share our picks of the week’s most interesting news, and our expert views.
Greenwashing in finance: Europe’s push to police ESG investing
As ESG becomes a part of the investment mainstream, the EU introduced new rules on March 10th designed to prevent greenwashing; the promotion of environmental concerns as a marketing exercise lacking substance. Under new regulation – and as part of a wider series of green finance rules – investment products will be categorised as sustainable and non-sustainable. Any asset manager that wants to market their fund as a sustainable product will be subject to tough disclosure requirements. This will also influence the decisions of listed companies who will be pressured to focus more on ESG issues or risk losing investor capital. (From Financial Times, 10 March 2021)
OECD: Prospects brighter for global economy
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that the world economy is likely to expand by 5.6% in 2021. The international agency also upgraded its forecasts for British economic growth for this year and next, expanding by 5.1% this year and then 4.7% in 2022. The significantly brighter outlook reflects the deployment of effective vaccines across the UK. However, it is added that there will be lasting costs from the Covid-19 crisis in some countries, including the UK, even though the global economy is likely to reach pre-pandemic levels of activity by the middle of this year. (From BBC, 10 March 2021)
Pensions Regulator sets out 15-year road map
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published a 15-year road map setting out future pensions regulations. TPR is stepping up its focus on making workplace pensions fairer, aiming to tackle inequalities between the value of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pension schemes. Ensuring trustees make more productive investment decisions on behalf of scheme members and realigning scheme structures to reflect the impact of the pandemic on the investment environment are also key goals targeted by TPR. (From Pensions Age, 10 March 2021)
Expectations over end of Stamp Duty holiday causes dip in house prices
House prices fell 0.1% over the last month, driven by buyers expecting the Stamp Duty holiday to end on March 31. Prospective homeowners are likely to have pulled back from purchasing homes due to them anticipating their transactions would not complete before the end of the original cut-off. The Chancellor announced an extension of the SDLT holiday until June 30th in last week’s Budget, with the threshold tapering down to £250,000 until September 30. (From The Times, 5 March 2021)
Face-to-face meetings not necessary to convince investors to part with capital
Half of potential investors are prepared to allocate capital to funds without meeting fund managers in person, according to a survey by Cebile Capital. Greater exposure to remote working practices among large swathes of the workforce may have driven limited partners to be more responsive to making investment decisions based on digital meetings with fund managers. (From Private Equity News, 10 March 2021)