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Under the golden ceiling of the Mansion House Egypt Hall, about 300 City Grandi was asked to recharge Manmont Bellett Labeljelly’s glasses to “Prime Minister Eckettar’s Health.”
Rachel Reeves was giving her second lecture at a fresh apartment house dinner after she announced the “Reform of Leeds.”
But in the grandeur of the opportunity on Tuesday night, the assembled audience of CEOs, bankers, pension fund managers and advisors was hardly convinced.
There was an unpleasant consensus that the Prime Minister’s financial strategy was not a Big Bang style shakeup that was once at the table.
“What kind of reforms?” said London’s elected Sir Michael Snyder.
He was not alone in expressing his anger that British savers were not encouraging abuse despite changes in cash ISAs several months later to encourage more investment, but there was no move as the Treasury reformed the ISA on a “too difficult” bucket.
One FTSE 100 chair shook his head in despair and distrust that there had not been any reforms to the ISA yet.
“The big ‘Sid’ move to convince Brits to buy stocks rather than keeping their savings in cash is nothing more than a glorious advertising campaign, and we need more hell to revive the market,” said a veteran from another city.
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Others lamented the launch of another task force, making London more attractive to stock exchange lists.
Mark Austin, senior partner at Latham & Watkins, who is on the Capital Markets and Investment Task Force, said the direction the Prime Minister has set was “good progress, but we need to shake the snowballs.
However, the chatter in the hall of the break between speeches was relatively optimistic.
One city advisor said, “It’s essentially the status quo, and they dropped everything we opposed, so there’s no hostility in the air.”
The Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech included nothing in the pension fund’s obligation to invest in British stocks. Even Lloyd’s CEO Charlinunn compares this to capital control.
In suppressing the flute of Nyetimber English sparkling wine, some participants marked the opportunity as a wake-up to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Reeves announced that it would disband and stop becoming a “semi-regulatory device.”
Last year’s Mansion House Dinner – delayed in fall due to the July general election – bankers and insurance companies were basking with rage over FOS that intervened in the motor finance scandal.
The insurance group’s chief executive said the dissolution of FOS was “a huge welcome and very big news.” Others should cut down the capital requirements for Challenger Bank, which has received approval from Metro Bank bosses.
However, the conversation never far from what could happen on Reeves’ fall budget. They also fear that the same audience praises the Prime Minister will be at the sharp end of wealth tax revenue.
