UK rich switch to cash and blue chips
By John Willman, Business Editor
Financial Times
Published: April 11 2008 22:07
Britain's richest people are ****fting their wealth from riskier
investments
into cash and blue-chip industrial stocks, switching about £70bn into the
shares of leading UK companies since November.
The re****t by Tulip Financial Research said the turmoil in financial
markets
had prompted a flight to quality by the wealthiest 1 per cent, who had
sold
commercial property assets and investments such as unit and investment
trusts.
Almost half had increased their cash holdings, while a quarter had bought
shares in familiar UK-listed companies -- often only shares in the FTSE
100.
"They are still broadly perceived as low-risk investments over the long
term," said John Clemens, Tulip managing partner. "The inflow of cash has
helped maintain the share prices of FTSE 100 companies."
The re****t is based on Tulipıs regular survey of the UK's wealthiest
individuals, 470,000 adults living in 335,000 households. They own more
than
GBP1,600bn of cash, bank deposits and investments easily converted into
cash
-- two-thirds of the country's liquid private wealth.
In November, there was little evidence of change in strategies, but by
last
month, almost half had switched their investments or were planning to do
so.
Those most likely to be changing their ****tfolios were the wealthiest --
the
135,000 people with average liquid assets of GBP7m.
The wealthiest 1 per cent of investors reduced their holdings in unit and
investment trusts by almost GBP50bn between surveys, and property-related
investments by GBP21bn since November.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/20ad169a-0809-11dd-a922-0000779fd2ac.html
|
