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About 30 percent to 40 percent of the mainly institutional clients that invest with the $1 trillion asset manager have asked to segregate their U.K. holdings to manage the risks associated with the talks to leave the European Union, said Wayne Bowers, chief executive officer for Europe and Asia. Northern Trust’s most “sophisticated” clients are doing this to be more “tactical,” he said.
“They want to ring-fence their U.K. exposure,” Bowers said at a press briefing at Northern Trust’s London office. It doesn’t mean that they’ll look to sell, he added.
Bowers said clients took similar action during the global financial crisis, when they separated banking holdings from their other assets. After the crisis, the financial sector rebounded. [...]