It’s been a turbulent few months since our last edition, marked first and foremost by the Autumn Budget – the actual contents of which were temporarily overshadowed by the early leak from the Office for Budget Responsibility. In the end, the Chancellor adopted a piecemeal approach to tax changes, rather than opting to rip the plaster off and break Labour’s election manifesto promise not to raise income tax.
Paraplanner Milly Haydon covers the salient points of the Budget for higher-net-worth individuals here; the overriding message from JM Finn is to avoid making any immediate changes to your personal financial situation before careful consideration – ideally with the input of your investment manager or our Wealth Planning team, who remain on hand for any questions you might have.
As the UK’s industries also consider the possible impact of the Budget on their future strategies, the state of two key, and related sectors – agriculture and hospitality are the subject of the editorials this issue. Assistant Research Analyst Jack Summers details the whisker thin profit margins under which the UK’s farmers and food producers operate here – and the sometimes negative consequences policymakers can have when attempting to strike the right balance between preservation of the countryside’s unique landscape composition and the need to produce sustenance for the growing population. In the guest editorial, Allen Simpson, CEO of trade body UKHospitality explains why the UK’s hospitality industry has come under the multi-pronged pressures of rising food and wage costs and squeezed consumer budgets for discretionary spending. Head Chef and restaurant Co-Founder Joe Mercer-Nairne adds flavour to the guest editorial with his first-hand experience of these effects – and his strategy to weather through stretched times here.
Also looking stretched are valuations of US technology stocks, with murmurs among some investors of a ‘bubble.’ Head of Investment Office Jon Cunliffe clarifies why this chapter of elevated tech equity prices is distinct from the hallmarks of the 90s dot-com era – making a repeat of the boom and bust unlikely– more on this in Markets in focus. One of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ group of mega-cap tech stocks, Alphabet, better-known as the parent company of Google, is this edition’s Stock in focus. Having enjoyed a long period largely untroubled by competitors, Google now faces the hurdle of a barrage of AI chatbots that have arrived on the scene armed with deep pockets and more sophisticated search functions than the short keyword searches we’ve known for many years.
Travel in the EU is also undergoing a major shake-up. The antiquated process of manual passport stamps is being replaced with biometric registration to improve security and ultimately speed up movement through border control. The transition is not without teething problems however as those who’ve been on the receiving end of long airport queues recently might attest to. In his Perspectives column, CEO Hugo Bedford takes a look at why long-term change for the better can sometimes bring short-term pain points. Lastly, closer to home, did you know that an estimated 70% of residential property in the UK could be underinsured? Ben Pickles of McClarrons Affinity gives practical tips in the Independent View to check your house and its contents are not part of that figure.