FTSE bosses fear for post-Brexit economy

WITH TRICIA PHILLIPS IF YOU’RE feeling a bit skint after the festive overspend, check if you’re due some unclaimed cash.

Up to £77billion could be sitting in forgotten pensions, bank accounts and other financial products.

Carl Drummond, senior wealth planner at investment firm Sanlam UK, says there are seven key places to look. 1. Pensions More than £5billion is languishing in forgotten pots. Try the free Pension Tracing Service, www.gov.uk/findpension-contact-details. 2. Bank and building society accounts The Money Advice Service says there’s £850million in unclaimed British accounts. Use the free service at mylostaccount.org.uk. 3. Premium bonds National Savings & Investments says there’s 1.5million unclaimed prizes worth £60million. Check My Lost Account to see if you hold any Premium Bonds and nsandi. com to check for prize numbers. 4. Insurance policies Life insurance policies can be easily forgotten. Unclaimed Assets UK, who help people to trace lost money, estimate there’s £2billion worth of unclaimed life insurance. Check if a deceased person had life insurance via old bank statements. 5. Lottery wins Find out if you’re owed any of the £12million unclaimed prizes at national-lottery.co.uk. 6. Child Trust Funds Check if your child is due a share of the £1billion in old CTFs via gov.uk. 7. Investments Check if you hold shares via one of the company registrars, Capita, Computershare and Equiniti, for free. BY DAVID CRAIK THE bosses of Britain’s biggest businesses fear the economy will decline further in 2019 as they give up hope of Government sealing a good Brexit deal.

A new Ipsos MORI poll revealed three-quarters of FTSE 500 leaders expect the general economic condition of the country to get worse over the next 12 months, up from 66 per cent this time last year.

Nearly all the leaders said the resolution of Brexit uncertainty was the most important issue facing the UK today, but 68 per cent said they were not confident in the ability of the Government to negotiate a good deal. Only one-fifth said they were confident, down from 28 per cent this time last year. Most believe Brexit has been worse than they predicted 12 months ago with more than half stating it was a “significant risk” to their company.

Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos MORI, said: “As with the public, business is losing confidence in Government’s ability to manage Brexit.”

UK manufacturers are proving particularly nervous according to a separate survey. They spent Christmas ramping up their stock levels of raw materials as fears over a no-deal Brexit intensified.

IHS Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index revealed new orders of materials and finished goods by both manufacturers and their customers reached record highs in December.

It said companies were implementing plans to reduce SMALL businesses in Wolverhampton have banked £1million in new sales after signing up to an eBay Retail Revival scheme. Businesses have on average seen a 41 per cent sales increase in three months after receiving help from eBay experts covering digital and selling skills. potential supply chain disruption such as border customs delays.

“Stocks of purchases and finished goods both rose at near surveyrecord rates, while stockpiling by customers at home and abroad took new orders’ growth to a 10-month high,” said Rob Dobson, director at IHS Markit.

“Any positive impact for the sector is likely to be shortlived, however, as any gains in the near-term are reversed later in 2019 when safety stocks are eroded or become obsolete.

“Manufacturing will be entering 2019 with Brexit uncertainty having intensified considerably.” BIG business profits should be slashed if these firms fail to look after society and the environment, many people believe. Research by YouGov and Social Value UK suggest 40 per cent of us think businesses should be forced to include the amount of social and environmental value they have created or lost when calculating profitability. Social Value UK said firms should adopt a “principlesbased” approach to their accounting according to work they’ve done in areas such as gender pay, emissions and energy efficiency.