Panmure Liberum is a new force in UK Investment Banking and Corporate Broking

I keep on banging the drum for investor engagement with corporations on ESG matters. I have written before that if investors team up in a syndicate, they have a better chance of changing corporate practices and that investor engagement on climate change-related topics tends to reduce the carbon intensity of targeted companies. But now, I have come across a study that shows how successful engagement directly reduces downside risk in the share price.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been a Member of Parliament for fourteen years, so she won’t be surprised that her political honeymoon in The Treasury has been brief. Events come at you fast when you are a finance minister. Events that can quickly swamp any predetermined strategy. Since the Chancellor took office on 5 July an in-tray of spending requests has been piling up. Some of them have been predictable. Others rather less so.​

Fears over the health of the United States economy have rattled financial markets. Last Monday saw the biggest one day fall in global stock markets in almost two years. Trading floors were abuzz with speculation of an emergency interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. By the end of the week a semblance of calm had been restored but confidence remains superficial. The next few weeks of data will be poured over for signs of a fracturing in the world’s largest economy.