UK faces £150B gap as city calls for private investment surge

The UK faces a £150 billion funding gap over the next five years and is expected to increase efforts to attract private investors to help close ￰0￱ shortfall is highlighted in a new report from the City of London Corporation, the local authority that presides over the country’s financial ￰1￱ report quotes a 15 billion-pound annual funding gap for the small- and medium-sized enterprises seeking to ￰2￱ also shows a similar infrastructure investment gap from housing, energy, and transport projects to digital ￰3￱ Hayward, policy chairman for the City, warned that the cost of inaction would be great: doing nothing would lead to lost opportunities, decreased productivity, and slower economic ￰4￱ warning comes as the UK economy grapples to break out of ￰5￱ markets worldwide struggle and tax increases are anticipated within the autumn budget, the government is pressured to create new ￰6￱ pushes for pension reform and more defined infrastructure plans The City calls for reform of pensions and a greater effort to direct savings into UK assets to plug the ￰7￱ cites examples from Canada and Australia, where domestic pension funds are significant investors in infrastructure at ￰8￱ UK government has already taken steps to implement some of these ￰9￱ the Mansion House Accord, 17 of the biggest pension funds in the country promised to allocate as much as 10% of their portfolios to private markets by ￰10￱ least half of that will likely be invested in UK assets, which could unlock a further £50 billion of fresh ￰11￱ the City says that’s not good enough, as it would like the government to lay out a more transparent pipeline of projects, so investors know what’s ￰12￱ is necessary, it adds, to generate confidence and attract long-term private ￰13￱ last month, BlackRock announced it had poured $700m into UK data centres – so clearly there’s still plenty of appetite among international investors to back them if the terms are sweet ￰14￱ new Labour government, little more than a year in office, is making strenuous efforts to increase ￰15￱ Minister Keir Starmer’s government had wanted to steer capital into British infrastructure, green energy, and growth industries.

A reshuffle has brought fresh faces to the forefront of this ￰16￱ minister for investment, who used to be Poppy Gustafsson, is businessman Jason Stockwood. Meanwhile, Lucy Rigby became city minister instead of Emma Reynolds, who was made environment ￰17￱ government is also establishing a new investment hub to match global funds with projects in the ￰18￱ say the goal is to make Britain an easier and more appealing investment ￰19￱ capital sparks challenges and debates These are all advances, but there are still huge ￰20￱ pension funds have been on the decline for domestic stocks for decades. Today, pensions are invested in British stocks to only 4% in those portfolios, compared with about 50% during the ￰21￱ trustees prefer investing offshore, where they can make better returns for less ￰22￱ trend has sparked ￰23￱ claim that switching pensions back into the UK would fuel growth and finance badly-needed ￰24￱ have said it could place savers at risk, or amount to trustees breaching their legal duty to act in members’ best ￰25￱ executives have even sounded the ￰26￱ chief executive of Aviva has also recently cautioned against “coercing” pension schemes to invest in Britain, arguing that it was not always the best way to maximize ￰27￱ Difference Wire : the secret tool crypto projects use to get guaranteed media coverage