In the long term, chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget will just be a “blip”, Artemis investment manager Adrian Frost has said.
Frost made these comments at a Quilter media event on 7 November.
In the short term, UK businesses will see rising costs, such as the rise in the rate of National Insurance paid by employers by 1.2 percentage points to 15% from April next year, Frost said.
But, “companies were aware this was in the pipeline” of what may be announced in the Budget.
Frost added that the Budget does not make the UK “better or worse off”, so he believes the UK can now “compete better internationally”.
The Budget, which took place on 30 October, saw the chancellor make £40bn worth of tax hikes.
However, the minimum wage also rose for those aged 21 years and over by 6.7% to £12.21 and pay for those aged 18 to 20 went up by 16.3% to £10 an hour.
Quilter Investors chief investment officer (CIO) and managing director Marcus Brookes compared Labour’s general election win in July 2024 to Republican Donald Trump’s victory in the US on 5 November.
He said both the Republicans and Labour saw “extraordinary results” mainly due to the incumbent governments of both countries being “rejected as they did not make life any better”.
Newton Investment Management deputy head of equity income, portfolio manager John Bailer, speaking at the same event, said he believes the regulatory environment in the US will do better under a Trump administration.
Newton is a global investment management firm, owned by BNY Mellon.
Frost manages Artemis’ UK equity income strategies, which he has done since he joined the firm in January 2002.
