Brexit; Unintended Consequences
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Summary: Expect further volatility from UK leadership changes, although we may be oversold. The worse markets get, the less likely Brexit becomes. The end result of Brexit may well be the UK adopting a Governance Regime closer to that of the EU and moving from austerity to redistribution.[/COLOR]
The unintended consequences of the libertarian coup
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]In this piece we take a considered stance on the likelihood of Brexit actually proceeding in the wake of June’s referendum and examine some of the strategic implications for equity investors in terms of the potential shifts in sovereign and corporate governance.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Following Emad’s thoughts written in the immediate aftermath of the referendum we still believe that a disorderly Brexit scenario is unlikely, unless the successful candidate in the Tory leadership election commits to an early Brexit and specifically an Article 50 notification without a parliamentary vote.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]We anticipate that investors’ shifting perceptions of the leadership contest and its aftermath will drive further market volatility, but that over the short term sterling is beginning to look oversold against the dollar.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Taking a longer term perspective, the result of what is effectively a libertarian coup will be the opposite to what its backers intended, namely to make the UK more like Europe by tilting resources from capital to labour.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Last week, global markets bounced with the conspicuous exception of sterling, as commentators and investors began to speculate that no sane British politician will be brave or rather foolhardy enough to activate Article 50 in the absence of any pre-negotiations, which EU representatives have said that they will refuse to enter into.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]In the meantime, a growing number of British workers, savers, consumers and beneficiaries of Brussels largesse should begin to realize that Brexit will have adverse consequences on their standards of living.[/COLOR]
The poisoned chalice
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]There is, however, now a major problem with the line of reasoning that Brexit will not proceed, namely that the decision whether to activate Article 50 has now effectively been passed into the hands of the 140,000 or so ‘blue rinse and blazers’ members of the Conservative Party, who voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU and who are now likely to select a candidate who will serve their wishes regardless of the broader impact on the UK economy.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The one potential candidate who would probably have been able to sell a volte face to the membership of the constituency parties was of course Boris Johnson walking in the (metaphorical) footsteps of Nixon in China, whilst his nemesis Michael Gove has also displayed sufficient flexibility to most likely adopt a pragmatic stance towards Brexit.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Now Johnson has left the stage and Gove may not proceed to the second round of voting, the task of going against the wishes of the majority of the Tory electorate will be much harder, particularly for a low profile Remainer such as front-runner Theresa May.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]This boosts the prospects of Andrea Leadsom who is backed by a coterie of Tory politicians and grandees, who appear prepared to sacrifice the future economic welfare of the UK for the untested libertarian dream of ‘taking back control’.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]In effect both they and the mainly privately educated hedge fund managers and other mini-oligarchs who backed the Leave campaign, are seeking to impose a libertarian experiment masquerading as a coup against the political and metropolitan establishment, on the working class Leave voters, many of whom will pay through rising prices, the loss of manufacturing jobs and further contractions in public services.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Of course there is still a very high chance that the Tories will opt for Theresa May’s more cautious approach, so that the Mexican stand-off between the UK and the EU continues for some time.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]In the past the Conservative Party has been renowned for its pragmatism and deference to the interests of business, so we would normally expect any future leader to find a way to thwart the wishes of the majority of party members to leave the EU.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]One key test will be if MPs engage in tactical voting to put the seemingly less electable Gove on the ballot paper instead of Leadsom, but that still leaves open the possibility of a conviction-driven Leave advocate winning the members ballot. In the meantime, May could be forced to adopt a more publically aggressive stance which might become a hostage to fortune for any potential negotiation with the EU.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The Brexit-induced volatility in financial markets is therefore unlikely to be over yet.[/COLOR]
The reflexivity of rioting markets
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]As I pointed out in recent comments to John Authers from the Financial Times, there is a strong reflexivity between the perceptions of financial markets and the probability that Brexit will actually be carried out.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]When the markets riot, the likely support for the future Prime Minister to invoke Article 50 is likely to diminish.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Conversely if the markets are calm, the proponents of leaving the EU can point to the apparent stability as an indication that the UK can cope perfectly well outside the EU.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]At present the plunge in the value of sterling and the gating of a number of commercial property funds serves the purposes of so-called ‘Project Fear’ amidst signs of buyers’ remorse among some Leave voters.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]However, the battle for the leadership of the Conservative Party has obviously now become the critical factor and the membership is less likely to be swayed by economic or financial concerns than broader public opinion.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]As the Conservatives pick a new leader and the Corbyn insurgency consolidates the electoral irrelevance of the Labour Party, the time and grind factor for the public will increase — as this drags on and the economy slows it will augment the more visible bouts of market pain.[/COLOR]
Aftershocks to hit EU shores
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The markets are also likely to be heavily influenced by the possibility of further turbulence within the rest of the EU.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]There are some signs in recent opinion polls that the pitiful state of post-referendum UK politics is having a salutary effect elsewhere in Europe, while Podemos was defeated in the recent Spanish election, but the Brexit vote is unlikely to mark peak populism in Europe, given continuing downward pressure on living standards for much of the population.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The EU is also still riven by conflicting objectives among the remaining 27 ‘committed’ EU members, across a myriad of issues, most notably migration, foreign policy, the speed and extent of political and fiscal integration and attitudes towards the ECB.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The difference in opinion between the German and Italian governments regarding the recapitalization of the Italian banking sector ahead of October’s constitutional referendum in Italy, appears to be the most likely source of a serious potential conflict.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The European banking sector is potentially far more vulnerable to any threat to the integrity of the Eurozone than to any narrow Brexit scenario.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]It is not inconceivable that events in another member state, or a major policy breach between states, has a bearing on the UK’s situation between now and the installation of a new Prime Minister, though it is unlikely that there will be any compromise on the free movement of people to give the new UK leader some wiggle room.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The most promising avenue for negotiation to avoid Brexit might lie in the possibility of a move by Germany and a group of East European and Scandinavian countries to take back some powers from the Commission to the individual nation states.[/COLOR]
How Brexit may make the UK more like the EU
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]If the UK does proceed to leave the EU without securing any meaningful concessions on trade and financial services, the impact on the Governance Regime for UK listed companies is likely to be profound, but in a different way to most current expectations.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The UK equity market has operated against the backdrop of a relatively Liberal Governance Regime since Mrs Thatcher’s first term in office (1979–1983), but the perverse consequence of the Leave vote, which was championed by self-professed libertarians, is that the UK is likely to move towards a more continental European type of Coordinated Governance Regime, if the next Tory leader and hence Prime Minister implements Brexit.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]There have been a couple of seismic shifts in the UK’s Governance Regime for listed companies since the Second World War, as documented in Brian Cheffins seminal work ‘Corporate Ownership and Control: British Business Transformed’.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The first was the subordination of business to the corporate state during the 1950s and 1960s as higher taxes and nationalization transformed company ownership from concentrated private hands to the state and the big insurance and pension funds.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]There was an especially big decline in family controlled large and medium sized firms during this period. Then, starting in 1979 and gathering pace from the City of London’s ‘Big Bang’ liberalization in 1986, business became more international and company managements gained more autonomy as part of the rise of financial capitalism.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The professed determination of Chancellor George Osborne and his Brexit opponents to put the interests of UK business at the centre of government policy is however unlikely to survive long after any implementation of Brexit, in our view.[/COLOR]
From austerity to redistribution
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]This is because fiscal policy will almost inevitably have to become more redistributive due to both concern for those ‘left behind’ voters who backed Brexit and also the likely contraction in the growth potential of the UK economy if the referendum vote is translated into policy.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Whilst the falling pound may reduce the level of the current account deficit, the likely collapse in inward investment will compound pressure on the fiscal balances further down the road.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The notion that the UK can replace EU trade and overseas investment predicated on access to the single market with free trade deals with emerging economies, which are generally by some distance more protectionist than their EU peers, is the stuff of fantasy.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The Coordinated Governance Regimes, which define the relationship between the listed corporate sector and society and the state across much of Continental Europe, prioritise broader social objectives and the interests of stakeholders other than shareholders, to a much greater extent than the UK’s current more liberal regime.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Over time, a move towards a more coordinated model would most likely reduce equity returns, although some observers would argue that this would be offset by a better balanced and less volatile economy.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Some political scientists believe that there is a strong correlation between ‘majoritarian’ political systems and the presence of more liberal Governance Regimes as opposed to the coalition type governments which tend to dominate Continental Europe, where markets generally play a more subordinate role.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The result of the Tory Party’s lost reputation for competence and the visible disintegration of the parliamentary Labour Party, is likely to be increased support for the Liberal Party and UKIP, along with the possible formation of a new more credible party of the centre ground; these developments may well increase the likelihood of coalition governments in the future.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]A similar process appears to be well under way in another country with a Liberal Governance Regime, namely Australia, where fringe parties have performed extremely well in the recent election.[/COLOR]
Conclusion: Turbulence ahead but we may be oversold here
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]To sum up, the contest for the leadership of the UK’s Conservative Party will continue to export volatility to global financial markets; any indications that pragmatism and compromise will triumph over democracy or libertarian dogma (take your pick but they are not necessarily mutually exclusive) will lead to rallies in risk assets in general and sterling in particular and vice versa.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Our central case remains that the political establishment will find a way out that doesn’t endanger the long term financial and and economic future of the UK, but then the writer of this piece believed that the Conservatives were a competent party of government until the night of June 23.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]What of UK assets?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]The post-referendum consensus call has been to expect sterling to trade down through $1.30 against the dollar and to switch the domestic oriented FTSE 250 index for the more internationally exposed FTSE 100.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]We were among those commentators, who preferred to hold dollars against Sterling before the vote because the fundamentals of the US economy looked superior to us.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]At around $1.30 though the situation is a mirror image of the one immediately prior to the referendum, namely the short term upside potential outweighs the downside if we take the view that the odds of avoiding a disorderly Brexit scenario are 50% or even a little higher.
https://governmentsandmarkets.com/br...a83#.x5rebkoks




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