UK to try and develop share-buying culture in the UK

I know the impetus on Reeves is to find sources of money after the disasters with welfare reform and a shrinking economy but this is an interesting one for me, I often read US and Canadian posters writing on Debate Politics about their adventures in the stock market but it's nowhere near (I believe) as strong a cultural activity among ordinary Brits who instead put savings into safe investments like ISAs and pension pots to let someone else take the risks and rewards. I think wealthier Brits with hundreds of thousands or millions in the bank are pretty used to investing on their own behalf but the ordinary office worker and man on the street probably doesn't take such risks.

An ISA for example may pay a pretty good rate of interest on the money held on behalf of the investor but you can be damned certain that the money is making even bigger returns that the investment company uses to pay its own dividends and company wages.

My other suspicion is that we would see less UK start-ups being sold off to American investment companies when UK companies could draw on UK investors to develop their business.

Maybe she should privatize something.

Sven Karma said:

Maybe she should privatize something.

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Nothing left to privatise.
We have Unicorn businesses which I feel the UK public should be able to invest in directly rather than have American companies come and buy them out.

Infinite Chaos said:

Nothing left to privatise.
We have Unicorn businesses which I feel the UK public should be able to invest in directly rather than have American companies come and buy them out.

UK investors are not geared up to invest in latter funding rounds because of a lack of capital and expertise,
says David Moore, the chief executive at Pragmatic Semiconductor, a Cambridge-based manufacturer of computer chips.
--snip--
there is a cultural difference to the US which is something they believe requires changing.
"In the UK we are less ambitious and much more risk averse. Investors invest more modest cheques, and
they do so with structure in their investments designed to protect their downside," says Mr Scullion.
"In general, they actively encourage minimising risk, rather than going all out to try and win. UK founders
therefore are also less aggressive, ambitious, and sophisticated in their use of the high-growth playbook," he adds.​

Where have all the UK tech 'unicorns' gone?

Only six UK firms became a unicorn last year by achieving a valuation of more than a billion dollars.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Not true... NHS .

The UKs main problem is English. So easy to integrate English companies for American multi nationals, than it is for say a German or French company. Look at the list of the biggest European tech companies..either they are ancient like SAP or/and most are non English speaking countries...or are seen as strategic companies like Dassault.

You had/have one big one.. ARM.. the chip architecture used in phones and other mobile devices. It is still not British anymore, even though it started as that..but was kept from the Americans by selling it to Japanese SoftBank Group. Not that Nvidia, Apple and others have not tried to buy it..

PeteEU said:

Not true... NHS .

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I left that out as it's basically political suicide for any Government to openly privatise the NHS.

PeteEU said:

The UKs main problem is English.

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Most of the articles say that the main problem is that the culture in the UK is to be risk averse, to go for safe bets like Govt bonds than the tech startups that we create here.

PeteEU said:

You had/have one big one.. ARM.. the chip architecture used in phones and other mobile devices.

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ARM was a brilliant example of a company that the UK didn't want to invest in for so many years. Now 90% owned by an investment bank from Japan.... just crazy.

Well, there's Network Rail, what could possibly go wrong?!

Sven Karma said:

Well, there's Network Rail, what could possibly go wrong?!

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You're determined to find the ones that will cause maximum political upset...

Infinite Chaos said:

You're determined to find the ones that will cause maximum political upset...

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Lol. But Thatcher got people who never previously had invested in shares to dive in by offering them reasonably 'blue chip' privatizations.

This seems rather like encouraging people to buy shares in racehorses without giving them much due diligence as to whether it's a thoroughbred they're investing in or a donkey with appealing eyes.

Sven Karma said:

Lol. But Thatcher got people who never previously had invested in shares to dive in by offering them reasonably 'blue chip' privatizations.

This seems rather like encouraging people to buy shares in racehorses without giving them much due diligence as to whether it's a thoroughbred they're investing in or a donkey with appealing eyes.

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Honestly think she had people's best interests but like selling council homes - she didn't predict or foresee that she should rebuild what had been sold off with the revenues earned. Reeve's plan could end up the same but we have a different scenario in my opinion which is that she wants British citizens to be more involved in share-dealing and hopefully also invest in the UK.
At the moment, we are regularly seeing our brightest assets repeatedly bought up by American companies and thus benefitting the American economy more than our own.

People in the uk should invest in stocks more. Even if that information came from a chancellor who saved her job by crying.