Latest news with #OfficeForInvestment
Bloomberg
15-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
UK Government to Set Up IPO Taskforce in Bid to Attract Listings
The UK's Labour government will create a taskforce to help bring new listings to the London Stock Exchange, underscoring the concern around the lack of initial public offerings on the capital's shrinking exchange. 'I am announcing a new listings taskforce with the Office for Investment to attract the best businesses in the world to IPO in the UK,' Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in prepared remarks for her annual Mansion House speech in the City of London.
Sky News
04-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Ministers to unveil revamped Whitehall investment hub
Ministers will this week unveil a revamp of the Whitehall investment hub that they hope will secure hundreds of billions of capital flows into the UK in the coming years. Sky News understands that Baroness Gustafsson, the investment minister, will address a private event on Thursday designed to relaunch the Office for Investment (OfI). Government sources said the revamp - in which Sir Keir Starmer's top officials and the Treasury have been closely involved - would align the UK's 'investment resources' under a single brand. The new OfI has absorbed teams from other Whitehall directorates with the objective of reducing confusion among international investors in Britain, according to the sources. Greg Jackson, the Octopus Energy chief, and Baroness Lane Fox, who chairs the British Chambers of Commerce, are expected to speak at the event in central London alongside senior government officials, according to people familiar with the agenda. Thursday's summit will come days before ministers launch the new industrial strategy, with the OfI charged with targeting investors in priority sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing and life sciences. A beefed-up investment hub was among the key recommendations of the former business minister Lord Harrington's review - commissioned by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt - in 2023. One insider said last year's International Investment Summit, at which ministers claimed to have drawn £63bn of new investment for the UK, provided a solid foundation for the revamped OfI. A further event designed to attract inward investment will be held in Birmingham later this year, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced on Wednesday.
Telegraph
18-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Ministers push to stop pharma brain drain to US
They have also warned that Donald Trump's crackdown on drug pricing means Britain could be blocked from accessing cutting edge medicines because of how England's healthcare spending watchdog assesses value for money. The Industrial Strategy, which will be revealed in the coming weeks, focuses on Britain's eight key growth-driving sectors, including defence, financial services, and the £108bn life sciences industry. Britain has 'underperformed' A draft compiled this month says the Government will 'establish a dedicated service to support 10 to 20 high potential UK companies successfully scale, invest and remain domiciled in the UK, working closely with the Office for Investment'. It will say the sector faces 'perennial challenges' that mean ideas in the UK are rarely scaled up for profit. Britain is 'brilliant at discovery, poor at commercialisation and adoption', the draft document says. Many mid-sized companies looking to grow are often forced to America to find funding, which has much deeper capital markets and the Government wants to stop Britain's high-growth companies from listing abroad. The draft strategy warns that Britain has 'underperformed' in areas of traditional strength for several years, including clinical trials. 'The UK has an ageing population which is increasingly multi-morbid, posing fundamental challenges for the NHS,' the document says. 'The economy is stagnant, with growth, productivity, exports and inward investment well below trend for at least the last decade.' 'Toxic' issues holding UK back While many in Labour will welcome the Government's interventionist approach, others fear the party is relying on 1970s-style industrial strategies that became synonymous with picking winners and propping up failing industries. Plans for a 'sovereign health fund', which the Telegraph first revealed in March, are also outlined in the document. The Government hopes the fund will help to bankroll research and aid the shift to a prevention-oriented NHS. The British Business Bank has also been given powers to pour more cash into the sector as part of Mansion House reforms unveiled last week that will see tens of billions more pensions fund cash ploughed into private markets. While industry bosses have praised ministerial engagement with the sector, sources warned a number of 'toxic' issues were holding Britain back. Drug makers are pressing the Government to relax the so-called voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and acces – which sets a yearly cap on the total allowed sales value of branded medicines to the NHS each year. If the NHS spends more than expected on branded medicines, drug makers are then forced to compensate the health service in the form of rebates. The scale of these rebates has ballooned in recent years. Between 2014 and 2018, the sector paid £2.8bn in rebates. This rose to £6.3bn between 2019 and 2023. This year alone, the drug industry is expected to pay £3.4bn. The industry is also pressing for clarity on the Government's response to Mr Trump's decision to order drugmakers to have price targets in the next 30 days, promising further action to lower prices if those companies do not make 'significant progress' towards those goals. The UK has already pledged in its trade agreement with the US to 'endeavour to improve the overall environment for pharmaceutical companies operating in the United Kingdom'. One industry source said: 'This life sciences strategy could be the best thing in the world – gold plated with bells and whistles. 'But if they don't address these two issues, the industry is going to shrug its shoulders and say, this won't move the dial on UK competitiveness.'
