The authors of this policy primer, M. Nicolas J. Firzli, World Pensions, and the Hon. Nick Sherry, Australia’s first Minister for Superannuation, are among the early proponents of “Infrastructure Driven Growth”, also known as “Modern Supply-Side Economics”, a term popularized by Treas. Sec. Janet Yellen and, more recently, Rachel Reeves, Britain’s new Chancellor

At the start of the decade, in a series of high-level roundtables held in Washington DC and the City of London, we argued that “the post-Brexit Age of Geoeconomics will be defined by an acceleration of the US-China race across sectors, including venture capital and infrastructure investment, and a relative scarcity of long-term capital – durably higher interests rates and bank crises etc.”

The new context [Cold War 2, Post-Globalization] should prompt national/federal governments to take a more proactive role in economic & financial affairs, combining industrial policy [Colbertisme] and fiscal incentives favoring job creating high tech and green infrastructure investments: “the need for governments, at national, state, and local level, to help steer more pension and insurance capital domestically, towards the job-creating industries of the future, which, in the words of Harold MacMillan, will help us build a just and lasting financial order, retaining our heritage of political, intellectual, and cultural freedom, while, at the same time, open up the way to higher standards of social welfare and economic security.”

Here, Britain has a unique, largely untapped advantage vis-à-vis its cash strapped European Union rivals: the UK is among the world’s top five “pension and sovereign wealth fund superpowers” alongside the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, which will give London a clear investment edge once HM Govt puts in place the right growth oriented frameworks

We also discussed these important issues for the future of the City of London at the 2024 Innovation Zero Summit chaired by Tim Mann, feat. notably the Rt Hon Ed Miliband, Sec. of State for Energy & Climate Change (30 April 2024)

Our high-level session was titled “Asset Owner Approaches to Green Investment” (see below), feat. Chris Smith, Westminster Pension Fund and Unison, the UK Govt. Employees Union, Olivier Wenden, Prince Albert II of Monaco FND, Tony Burdon, Make My Money Matter and Valerie Easmon-George, Islington Pension Fund. The Roundtable was introduced by our colleague Sammy Fry, Head of Climate, Tech Nation

These cross-cutting policy issues were also discussed by the authors and Chris Smith, West., at the G7 Finance and G7 Pensions Investment high-level roundtable held in Borgo Egnazia (13 – 15 June 2024) on the sidelines of the G7 Bari Summit, with the participation of leading UK, EU, AUS, and Canadian experts. We called notably for “the establishment of giant venture hubs across Britain, structured as public private partnerships (PPPs) of a new kind: bringing together the governments of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, FTSE 100 CEOs, Britain’s leading pension schemes and insurance companies and tech entrepreneurs” …

Britain will also benefit from the establishment of a large National Wealth Fund (NWF) focusing on long-term, productive assets such as renewable energy (wind/solar, geothermal), regional high-speed rail networks, microchip foundries and advanced AI applications across industries (Firzli & Sherry, Franzel) Such a fund, acting as “anchor investor” will attract naturally institutional co-investors from the established SWFs of Singapore, Australia, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia. Our colleague Stewart Lansley is also an early proponent of a “Social Sovereign Wealth Fund” to sustain equitable growth in Britain. S. Lansley is council member, the Progressive Economy Forum and research associate at the Compass think-tank

Learn more about pension and SWF investment in tech, sustainability and infrastructure assets: join the world’s leading experts in the field “from Canberra to Cambridge” at the City of London Forum 21–22 October 2024

The Future of Finance: CityEvent.org