Growth

Please see below selected intelligence from 2016 and earlier about investment. This is a synthesis of major recent developments at corporates, business schools, thinktanks, media, commentators, and other key influencers.

May 2016

• The world’s listed companies have paid out more than half their profits to shareholders in the form of dividends over the past year, an unusual situation that tends to occur only in periods of widespread economic weakness. In two years the proportion of profits paid out as dividends by companies within the MSCI World index has risen from 43 per cent to 51 per cent, according to Citi, above the long-run median of 46%.

• The forces that have driven exceptional investment returns over the past 30 years are weakening, and even reversing, warned McKinsey. It may be time for investors to lower their expectations. Given the waves of turbulence that have swept through financial markets in recent years, including the 2000 dot-com meltdown and the 2008 financial crisis, it may sound odd to describe the past three decades as a golden age for investors. But the reality is that total returns on equities and bonds in the United States and Western Europe from 1985 to 2014 were significantly higher than the long-term average.