|
|
More than 100 chief finance officers responding to Deloitte’s latest quarterly CFO report said Brexit presented the gravest threat to business over the next 12 months, above other factors including weak UK demand and US protectionism.
Some 78 per cent of CFOs said the business environment would deteriorate if the UK left the EU, a marginal improvement on the 79 per cent in the previous three months, when sentiment among finance chiefs hit its lowest level since the Brexit vote.
The report, which surveyed 110 CFOs, including 20 from FTSE 100 and 41 from FTSE 250 companies, also showed that corporate appetite for risk fell to its lowest level in nine years over the final quarter of the year, while expectations for revenue and margin growth hit multi-year lows.
It found that corporates are holding back from capital expenditure and hiring because of uncertainty over the UK’s future relationship with the EU, according to Deloitte, with CFOs placing more emphasis on cost reduction than at any point in the past nine years.
Funding conditions have tightened, too, with CFOs reporting that the cost of credit had risen to its highest level in six years, while the proportion of CFOs finding credit easy to come by fell to its lowest point in the past two years. [...]
Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)