Will Ukraine war prompt companies to bring production onshore?
The FT reports on how investors including Blackrock’s Larry Fink and Oaktree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks are recognising that the Ukraine crisis and the pandemic-induced supply chain disruption are signalling an end to globalisation, and a new era of re-shoring is nigh. Marks says how far the pendulum swings toward onshoring depends on whether “the need for dependability and security” defeats “the desire for cheap sourcing.”
Financial Times Financial Times
The UK has faced a persistent shortage of new housing, adding to soaring house-price growth, with many people being forced to rent for longer. The number of households in the UK private rented sector increased from 2.8 million in 2007 to 4.5 million in 2017, according to official figures.
Private rents in Britain rose at their fastest rate on record in January and average advertised rent outside London was 9.9% higher than a year ago, according to data from property website Rightmove.
The government took a series of steps to remove tax relief for buy-to-let landlords after hundreds of thousands joined the rush to buy second or third properties. As well as the tax relief, landlords have benefited in the last decade from ultra-low interest rates and capital gains from rising house prices.
Andrew Evans, managing economist at Capital Economics, who was commissioned to carry out the study by the lobby group National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), said “a series of policy changes” had reduced the stock of rental properties in the UK. He added that “supply could fall by over half a million more over the next decade” if no changes are made.
