Welcome to our annual FTSE350 review for 2015. Our team of sector specialists have run the rule over every sector in the FTSE350 and give their views on the main challenges for each sector and the companies within them as well as detailing the latest IC view for each company within the top 350 companies in the UK.
Click here for our companies editor Stephen Wilmot’s introduction in which he gives his overview on how the FTSE350 performed over the past year and assesses which sectors came out on top and why.
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Financial Services
Banks normally thrive during periods of economic recovery and growth, but for the UK’s banks this is not just another recovery in the cycle, they are still shaking off the financial crisis. And for asset managers, flat but volatile investment markets have posed a challenge.
Insurance
Life assurers should benefit from economic growth as demand for their products rises, but the past year, and the one to come, have been dominated by regulatory and political changes which could alter the face of the industry for a long time to come.
General retailers & food and drug retailers
Retail was dominated in 2014 by the rise of the discounters in the grocery sector which has left it in a state of permanent structural change as we enter 2015, with new bosses at the helm of all the big quoted supermarkets. On the high street, the growing polarisation between winners and losers looks likely to continue.
Food producers & Household goods
Globalisation was meant to be a boon for large diversified household goods and food producers, but the differing speed of growth in the world regions, challenges in emerging markets and currency fluctuations have muddied the waters for many.
Food producers & Household goods
Travel & leisure
This broad sector is often beholden to consumer spending which, although likely to be freed from the shackles of years of negative wage growth in the coming year, is increasingly choosy.
Technology, media & telecoms
The worlds of telecoms, broadcast and the media continue to converge, offering challenges and opportunities in equal measure.
Engineering, industrials & aerospace
Slowing global growth and falling commodity prices offer a sizable challenge to companies in these sectors.
Oil & Gas/Chemicals
The story of the second half of 2014 and the early months of 2015 has been the dramatic slide in the oil price which has begun to lay waste to the spending plans of the super majors, leading to potentially troubling times for the myriad companies that rely on the industry.
Mining
The metals and mining sectors suffered another disappointing year, extending their record of general underperformance as commodity prices remained in the doldrums.
Support services
The companies in these broad sectors have naturally differing prospects with those linked to government outsourcing and construction projects still hoping for more as governments continue shifting liabilities off their balance sheets.
Healthcare & pharmaceuticals
Mergers, or at least failed deals, dominated the big pharma sector during 2014 and masked some of the wider challenges facing its major players. But the long term structural themes of an ageing population and the development of emerging markets remain in place.
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology
Healthcare equipment & services
Utilities
Political interference dominated sentiment towards the energy sector last year, and this will last well into 2015, with the falling oil price adding intrigue. For water companies, a period of uncertainty has passed as the next regulatory period has been agreed.
Real estate
Property has been pretty much the one stand out success story in the UK market over the past year and despite the potential for a wobble in the housing market leading up to the general election, wider conditions remain set fair.
