FT columnist predicts dour decade for charity investment

Finance | Daniel Phelan | 9 Sep 2011

Charity investors shouldn’t expect to reap much return on their investments for the whole of the next decade, Money Week editor-in-chief Merryn Somerset Webb said earlier this week.

Speaking at the Rathbone Investment Symposium, Somerset Webb told an audience of charity investors that they should “get used to seeing a lot more wealth destruction over the next few years”, and that “the rich are beginning to lose faith in cash”.

“Charity investors really can’t expect to take much returns on their investments for the next decade,” said the journalist, who also writes a column for the Financial Times.

She continued: “The rich know that the West can’t grow its way out of debt and also that austerity can’t work as there are no cuts big enough to do the job. The only answer is to inflate it away.”

Ivo Clifton, Rathbone’s head of charity investing, picked up the theme by asserting that “to preserve real wealth you need to invest in real assets, like equities and property”.

Clifton added: “Our biggest dilemma is what is going to happen to gilt prices” adding that “as well as liking big brands like Unilever which are selling in increasing quantities all over the world, we also prefer corporate bonds to gilts”.

Directory: Rathbone Greenbank Investments

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