‘What else can we do with the cash?' How firms are rewarding shareholders

THE THOMAS REPORT

Nigel Thomas, manager of the £4.6bn AXA Framlington UK Select Opportunities fund, highlights his preferred stocks from the UK market as firms renew their focus on shareholder returns and look to redeploy cash.

In the May edition of the Thomas Report, we commented Washington and Brussels were equally reviled. While politicians have ample opportunity to wreck an economic recovery, animal spirits will persist and perpetuate a business cycle. Even in the UK, as Disraeli remarked in 1852, “England does not love coalition”. However, Simon Bond of Redburn Partners, one of our research-based stockbrokers, summed up the UK’s improving position rather well: “Having grappled with rising bond yields and the appearance and disappearance of tapering, the new curve-balls over stasis in the US budgetary pr...