Ros Altmann: The damaging bias against UK investment companies

Unsupportive regulation

UK listed investment companies are a long-standing British success story, but seem to have come under attack from well-intentioned, but flawed, domestic regulations.

In the name of consumer protection, the cards have been stacked against UK investment trusts and REITs, even though they have generally delivered good investor returns for decades. This situation needs to be urgently remedied but, despite recognising there is a serious problem, Government and regulators have shown little sense of urgency to do so. Flawed implementation of new Consumer duty rules, the Financial Conduct Authority's failure to adequately guide and monitor retail investment platforms, plus misleading or flawed information disclosures, have put barriers in the way of inves...