Don't overlook the UK's long-term growth drivers

ON UK GROWTH

The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around…This line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner sums up the current sentiment of most investors. But if you look carefully, there are breaks in the freeze that offer very attractive investment opportunities.

Long-term growth drivers have not vanished. They include EM demand for infrastructure, engineering expertise and consumer goods. The need to find new energy resources, further advances in technology and flows of capital will still be the dominant features of the global economy over the next 10 years. Investors must keep these long-term drivers at the forefront of their thinking and not be swamped by short-term tremors. We buy companies with the aim of owning them for a long period of time. Their barriers to competition, through their intellectual property, distribution or contracted recu...