Labour to ensure pension funds invest more in UK firms if it wins power
Adds Lyons comment in paragraph 7, reaction in paragraph 13, private equity tax in paragraph 14
By Huw Jones and Carolyn Cohn
LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) -Britain's Labour Party, tipped in the polls to win a general election on July 4, said on Thursday that if it won power it would ensure that pension funds invested more in UK companies.
Cash-strapped Britain has little choice but to rely on private funds to pay for renewing infrastructure and cutting carbon emissions.
The party has long sought to reassure the City there would be a continuation of the post-Brexit financial reforms set out by the current Conservative government to boost the sector's global competitiveness.
"Financial services are one of Britain's greatest success stories," said Labour's election manifesto, published on Thursday.
"Labour would support innovation and growth in the sector, through.. ensuring a pro-innovation regulatory framework," it added.
A Labour government would set up a National Wealth Fund capitalised with 7.3 billion pounds ($9.32 billion) over the course of the next parliament by targeting three pounds of private investment to every one pound of public investment.
Nicholas Lyons, chair of insurer Phoenix PHNX.L, told Reuters in a recent interview that the national wealth fund idea was positive, showing that Labour was "interested in doing something very long term".
The current government backed the "Mansion House Compact", spearheaded by Lyons when he was Mayor of the City of London, whereby pension providers such as Aviva AV.L, Legal & General LGEN.L and Phoenix voluntarily commit to investing 5% of their assets in British growth companies by 2030, as London faces competition from New York and EU financial centres for listings.
Labour stopped short of saying it would mandate pension fund investments.
"We will adopt reforms to ensure that workplace pension schemes take advantage of consolidation and scale, to deliver better returns for UK savers and greater productive investment for UK PLC," it said.
"We will also undertake a review of the pensions landscape to consider what further steps are needed to improve pension outcomes and increase investment in UK markets."
Consultancy Broadstone said the manifesto contained no notable big-ticket ideas for pensions, and confirmed plans to progress with the existing productive finance agenda.
Morten Nilsson, chief executive of pensions specialists Brightwell, said that if Labour won the election it should partner with the pensions industry in developing its national wealth fund.
Labour also said it would close a loophole whereby performance-related pay in the private equity sector was taxed more leniently as capital gains rather than income.
($1 = 0.7830 pounds)
Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alex Richardson
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
