Economy

Share Ownership 2002 26 percent fall Benefical ownership of UK shares: end 2002 Between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2002 the market value of the Stock Market fell by £400 billion to £1,154.6 billion, representing a fall of 26 per cent.

Headline findings of the 2002 Share Ownership Survey show that institutional shareholders accounted for 49.4 per cent of UK ordinary shares at 31 December 2001, with a combined value of £571.1 billion. Of this, the largest components were insurance companies with £230.1 billion and pension funds with £180.1 billion. At the end of 2002, individuals' holdings amounted to £165.5 billion, or 14.3 per cent, a fall in value of 28 per cent since 31 December 2001.

This excludes individuals' ownership of unit trust units that in turn represented substantial amounts of shares. Foreign holders owned 32.1 per cent of the ordinary shares, representing investments of £370.4 billion, of which 41 per cent were owned by Europe-based investors. Other financial institutions’ holdings of UK shares have risen slightly over the last 12 months to 10.5 per cent (up from 9.9 per cent at the end of 2001). Banks holdings of UK shares increased to 2.1 per cent (£24.2 billion),

representing their highest share since the survey began in 1963. For the larger investing sectors, the proportion of funds invested in the FTSE 100 companies varied between 69 per cent and 92 per cent, with between 8 per cent and 31 per cent being invested in smaller companies.