Venkat: Barclays boss at ’95 per cent’ after cancer scare as he warns on UK economy
The Barclays boss Venkat has said he is running at ’95 per cent’ after a cancer scare at the back end of last year.
Coimbatore Sundararajan Venkatakrishnan, better known as Venkat, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma last autumn, but has told The Sunday Times that “my energy levels are 95 per cent – not 100 per cent yet, but fair.”
Venkat also warned in the interview that the UK needed to “get investment back” in order to power the economy.
“The government does not have the flexibility to borrow that it once had,” he told The Sunday Times, “so there’s a real role for private investment.”
Venkat is not alone in seeing private investment, with Barclays a key driver, as the answer to the UK’s shortage of investment.
More than half of pension scheme leaders expect to increase their investment in UK infrastructure projects in the next year, with many arguing a series of pending post-Brexit reforms will be the “key driver” behind their plans, according to a new survey exclusively shared with City PM
Over 60 per cent (62 per cent) of pension scheme leaders are expecting to boost investment in UK infrastructure in the next year, the survey, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of the investment fund GLIL Infrastructure, found.
Just under half (44 per cent) said the government’s so-called Edinburgh Reforms would be the “key driver” behind this investment decision.
The Edinburgh reforms, announced by the government in December last year, are designed to “unlock investment and turbocharge growth” by repealing “burdensome pieces of retained EU law”.
But many pension funds and insurance firms have complained that the government is not moving quick enough on passing the proposed changes.